Granny Smith Festival

The Granny Smith Festival is held in Eastwood, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. It is the largest annual event of its type in Lower Northern Sydney (and northern Sydney). The festival is held in and around Eastwood Oval and is usually in October of each year to commemorate 19th Century pioneer Maria Ann 'Granny' Smith, credited with producing the "Granny Smith apple" and celebrated for providing the Ryde-Hunters Hill area with great prosperity.

The festival highlights are the Grand Parade down Rowe Street, and the fireworks display that every year lights-up the skies above Eastwood. There are also stalls, community events, live entertainment, rides and lots of fanfare. It is a festival tradition that the New South Wales Mounted Police lead the Grand Parade.

In 2004, the festival attendance record was broken once more and now currently stands at 100,000 with even larger crowds expected in 2008.

The 2007 Festival

The Granny Smith Festival in 2007 was of particular significance, in that it became a major campaign venue for the Australian federal election, 2007. For the first time in the Festival's 22-year history, it was officially opened by the (then) local Member of Parliament, Prime Minister John Howard. There were speculations that his appearance was largely due to the emergence of a serious challenge towards not just his Coalition government, but indeed his very own parliamentary seat of Bennelong, from high profile ALP candidate Maxine McKew. Apart from Howard and McKew, a number of other local politicians, along with hundreds of volunteers representing numerous political parties and interest groups, attended the Festival, with a large contingent of media crew following their campaign trails.

For the record, John Howard was defeated by Maxine McKew, thus becoming only the second serving Prime Minister in Australian history to lose his own seat in an election.

The 2008 Festival

The 2008 Granny Smith Festival will also be of important significance with the Ryde by-election being held on the same day, Saturday October 18. This was triggered by the resignation of John Watkins who has been an MP for Ryde since 1995.

ee also

*List of festivals in Australia

External links

* [http://www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/news/granny.htm 2006 Festival]