Maraka.

With a sense of the parade was ordinary we wandered down to the stage to see if anything interesting was going to happen, and it did, this marching band was from Townsville and if not brilliant at least show plenty of promise if they can stay together and develop, the leader appeared to have much talent.

After the band played a few tunes ending with a medley showstopper local legend Mario Torrisi spoke about a statue he wants to erect and was awaiting permission.

Then we were entertained by the local youth, here a dancer who chose a tune I'd had the joy of never hearing before.

Then more dancers, this time to and Indian type tune that was also unknown to me but was an improvement on the prior tune.

Three dancers and three exotic looking women videoing their performance, there's a possibility they might be related. Unusually in this age of the cellphone only one of those videos should be totally useless due to holding the camera the wrong way (vertically)

Yep sure enough another dancer appeared on stage, to another typically tuneless number that as is normal for our time was too long.

Sure enough more dancers followed, of course the Maraka stage is quite useless as the speakers obscure the lower half of the performers.

Oh bliss oh joy a young fellow had the talent and ticker to play a tune on a violin, he did a good job too and even had the sense to limit the length of the tune he was playing.

Then came a singer so my mood was pretty good again, her song choice wasn't great and she also suffered from equipment breakdown a good way into things but after they put it right she must have relaxed enough to find her voice pretty well and did a fine job of the ordinary and way too long number.
Then came more dancers but I had already stayed way longer than planned so we shuffled off.
Next year I'll plan our visit more about the stage and far less about the parade.