Pako Festa

Pakington Street is a boutique shopping strip in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Known as “Pako” to local residents, the strip stretches between the suburbs of Geelong West at its north end and Newtown at the south. The south end of Pakington Street is commonly referred to as the "Paris end", due to its high density of high-end designer boutiques and exclusive restaurants, while the north end, better suited for retail and hospitality, is commonly referred to as the "Melbourne end".While both ends have their followers, it is the Melbourne end that has been the most popular of recent times, in part, due to its position as the center of Geelong when it comes to cosmopolitan atmosphere and multiculturalism.Every February, the street hosts the Pakington Street Festa or Pako Festa; a parade dedicated to celebrating the multicultural heritage of the area.

Geelong railway station is located on the Warrnambool line in Victoria, Australia. It serves the city of Geelong, and it opened on 1 November 1856.Together with Ballarat, it is one of only two stations in Victoria to have a 19th-century train shed, and is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The railway station complex has also been listed by the National Trust of Australia, as being of state-level significance.

The City of Geelong West was a local government area about 5 kilometres (3 mi) west of the regional city of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of 5.26 square kilometres (2.0 sq mi), and existed from 1875 until 1993.

Geelong West is a commercial and residential suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. When Geelong was founded, the area was known as Kildare but its name was changed to Geelong West in 1875. The main street is Pakington Street. At the 2016 census, Geelong West had a population of 6,966.

Geelong Church of England Girls' Grammar School, The Hermitage was founded in 1906. It was first proposed in a meeting between the Archbishop of Melbourne, Henry Lowther Clarke, and the Head Master of Geelong Church of England Grammar School, L.H. Lindon and opened with Sidney Austin as first Chairman Council and Elsie Morres as first Headmistress. The Hermitage, a mansion in Newtown built for the Armytage family, was bought for £6,000 with the same amount being spent on wiring and furnishing the building and constructing an assembly hall. The school advanced the education of girls in Australia in many ways including being the first girls' school to have a uniform and to have compulsory team sports. The curriculum combined academic subjects, crafts, and home economics, aiming to provide both what Miss Morres thought of as a serious education as given to boys and those things the families expected their girls to learn to be good wives. In 1970, Krome House, the new middle school, was opened in Highton and in 1973 the rest of the school moved to the site. In 1976 C.E.G.G.S. "The Hermitage" amalgamated with Geelong Church of England Grammar School and Clyde School, which continue to-day as Geelong Grammar School.

Geelong Arts Centre, formerly the Geelong Performing Arts Centre (GPAC), is a performing arts, functions, and events venue located in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The complex is located between Little Malop and Ryrie Streets in central Geelong, and comprises a number of venues. It also hosts Creative Engine, a sector of the organisation that runs programs such as Community Fuel.

The Gordon Institute of TAFE is the Technical and Further Education institute predominantly servicing the wider Geelong area. The Gordon opened in 1887 and celebrated 130 years of providing education in 2017.The Gordon provides education to more than 13,500 students annually and, with more than 500 staff members, it is one of the largest employers in Geelong. The Gordon offers over 350 courses across several campuses located in Geelong City, East Geelong, Werribee and Hoppers Crossing. Sixty percent (60%) of The Gordon students live in the wider Geelong region.

The City of Greater Geelong is a local government area in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, located in the western part of the state. It covers an area of 1,248 square kilometres (482 sq mi) and, had a population of 271,057 as of the 2021 Australian census. It is primarily urban with the vast majority of its population living in the Greater Geelong urban area, while other significant settlements within the LGA include Anakie, Balliang, Barwon Heads, Batesford, Ceres, Clifton Springs, Drysdale, Lara, Ocean Grove, Portarlington and St Leonards. It was formed in 1993 from the amalgamation of the Rural City of Bellarine, Shire of Corio, City of Geelong, City of Geelong West, City of Newtown, City of South Barwon, and parts of Shire of Barrabool and Shire of Bannockburn.The City is governed and administered by the Greater Geelong City Council; its seat of local government and administrative centre is located at the council headquarters in Geelong, it also has service centres located in Drysdale, Ocean Grove and several other locations within Geelong. The City is named after the main urban settlement located in the centre-west of the LGA, that is Geelong, which is also the LGA's most populous urban centre with a population of 211,986.In 2019, City of Greater Geelong announced a new headquarters across the road from WorkSafe Victoria. The project will be part of the new "Civic Precinct" in the Geelong CBD.

The City of Geelong was a local government area about 75 kilometres (47 mi) southwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of 13.4 square kilometres (5.2 sq mi), and existed from 1849 until 1993.

The Electoral district of Geelong was one of the original sixteen electoral districts of the old unicameral Victorian Legislative Council of 1851 to 1856. Victoria being a colony in Australia at the time. The Electoral district of Geelong's area was defined as: "Bounded by a line drawn from a point on the eastern shores of Corio Bay near Point Henry at a distance of 2 miles from the north-east corner of the Township of Geelong as a centre bearing southerly to a point bearing east from the said corner thence by a line south crossing a small portion of Corio Bay parallel with and at a distance of 2 miles from the eastern boundary of the said township to a point bearing east from the south-east corner of the said Township of Geelong thence by a line drawn westerly at a distance of 2 miles from the southern boundary of the said township crossing the Barwon River and Waurn Chain of Ponds to a point 2 miles west of the south-west corner of the said township thence by a line bearing north parallel with and at a distance of 2 miles from the western boundary of the said Township of Geelong to a point bearing west from the north-west corner of the said township thence by a line drawn at a distance of 2 miles from the north-west corner of the said township as a centre to the western shore of Corio Bay near Cowie's Creek and also to include the remaining portion of the reserve at Point Henry and the reserve at the junction of the Moorabool with the Barwon River."From 1856 onwards, the Victorian parliament consisted of two houses, the Victorian Legislative Council (upper house, consisting of Provinces) and the Victorian Legislative Assembly (lower house).

Geelong Province was an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Council until 2006, located around Geelong. It was abolished from the 2006 state election in the wake of the Bracks Labor government's reform of the Legislative Council. The area of the former Geelong Province then became part of the larger Western Victoria Region.

The electoral district of Geelong is an electoral district of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. It centres on inner metropolitan Geelong and following the June 2013 redistribution of electoral boundaries includes the suburbs of Belmont, Breakwater, East Geelong, Geelong, Geelong West, Newtown and South Geelong, Herne Hill, Manifold Heights, Newcomb, Newtown, St Albans Park, Thomson, Whittington and part of Fyansford.The seat first existed from 1856 to 1859 as a four-member seat. It was split into Geelong East and Geelong West in 1859, but re-created in 1876 as a three-member seat. It was cut back to a two-member seat in 1889 and became a single-member seat in 1904. It was abolished in 1976 but re-created in 1985. In its current incarnation, it has historically been a marginal seat with demographics similar to the state at large. As such, it was held by the governing party of the day from 1985 to 2010. Incomes vary strongly across the seat. It was won in 1999 by Ian Trezise for the ALP by 16 votes after recounts. The Victorian Parliament was hung at that election, and the results for the seat of Geelong, which took several days to arrive at, had a significant impact on the events that brought the Bracks government to power. At the 2002 election, the seat's margin grew to 8.1%, however, neither major party considered it safe due to its history as a marginal seat. Trezise narrowly held it for Labor in the 2010 election, becoming the first opposition member for this seat in its current incarnation. The 2014 Victorian state election saw boundary changes and Christine Couzens retained the seat for the ALP following the retirement of Trezise.