First time I have been to such a event, it rained early in the morning ,but once the rain cleared,…read moreeveryone came down . It was a great festival / experience . The food was absolutely excellent , it is also a very family friendly experience , with plenty of security and Police. So if you missed this year ,mark it down for next year. BTW the fireworks at the end where spectacular .

The most magical time of the year is not DECEMBER it is in…read morefact JANUARY (the month of glorious, smelly old books!) Lifeline book fest is akin to Christmas, Hanukkah and my Birthday, In fact every year I come in armed with a trolley bag and steely determination to nab every good book I find. But you ain't got to be no square to enjoy books, from Tolstoy, Dancing Cat's and Bird Watching almanacs to Snoop Doggy Doggs ABC, Bookfest has got you covered. I like to start off in the RARE EXPENSIVE section and gradually wheeze my way to the children's books. (Don't tell me you don't want Roald Dahls BFG on your bookcase.) Bookfest is likely to steal away your whole day so really do try and come prepared. It's best to come on the first couple of days before the best books are nabbed, also PLEASE do account for food stuffs otherwise you'll wind up shaking, confused and clutching the sport biography of Michael Clark (Asiya circa 2010)

It's the night before Lifeline Bookfest and I'm acting like a five year old does on Christmas Eve…read more I'm making wishlists, setting my alarm, and trying to drink as much warm milk as I can manage because I JUST CAN'T SLEEP. I'm too excited. Lifeline Bookfest is held at the Brisbane Convention Centre bi-annually. It's a Save The Date kind of affair. Basically, an entire libraries worth of books is dumped and strewn throughout an exhibition hall and put on sale for dirt cheap prices. There are literally MOUNTAINS of books to sift through. It's not all chaos though, the books are categorised by genre. You'll be able to navigate through the aisles easily enough if you can manage to move amid the crowd. Favourites among the crowd are the HQ (High Quality) section, and the games section. Looking for a backgammon board or a game of Cluedo? You'll find it here. Several of them. You'd do well to get in early. There are hoardes of people that travel all across Brisbane for this event. People use trollies instead of book bags. It is an all out frenzy. You'll only be able to move an inch at a time through the aisles because you'll be immersed in a thick soup of crazed book worms getting high on stale book smell. The best part is listening to the public announcements while you're browsing. There's always calls for missing people and lost children. The guy who does the call outs is sardonic and funny as hell. He alone is worth coming down for.

If your into over cooked Greek food over priced drinks ($13 for 100ml of wine ) this is the…read morefestival for you. What a wast of time and money.

Annual festival to celebrate greek culture, but let's face it, everyone goes for the food…read more $10 entry isn't too steep, and seeing the vast number of stalls makes me wonder where all these greek folk are hiding in Brisbane! There's a stage and dance area where you'll get your entertainment. Behind that is the food. Row are row of food. Each place sells mostly the same thing. Souvlakis, yiros, honey puffs and the like. It's all mostly the same price too, so go wherever tickles your fancy or the queue is shortest. Is that all there is to greek food? Heavens no. But they know what's popular and easy to cook/serve on the day. There's also a fun park area with rides and such. I must admit I don't bother with these, and up the back on the road behind the stage is an area of stalls, many of which don't really fit the greek theme, but you can still find some interesting things up there. We ended up sitting under a tree back behind all the action, and walking past dozens of rotisseries cooking fragrant smelling lamb... well that's where we went. Lamb yiros, one of my favourites and rather than the honey puffs, I went the galaktaboureko (spelling is rather fluid stall to stall), which I think is the BEST greek dessert, just under appreciated because it's hard to say. They'll probably settle for 'custard pie'. Look. Have I had a better yiros? More times in my life than I can count, including some pretty good ones in Brisbane. Have I had better galaktaboureko? Well, mine is better, if I do say so myself. But on a sunny autumn day it's a great excuse to get out of the house, eat some nice food and just have a bit of fun.

It seems like every country needs its own film festival in Brisbane. There is the Spanish Film…read moreFest, Russian Film Fest, German, Mexican, French and of course the Lavazza Italian Film Festival. I have to hand it to the Palace Cinemas for supporting festival like this one. I mean really how many chances do you get in the year to gaze upon Italian cinema. My love for Italian cinema started at a young age when my father introduced me to Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. After that, I also watched some more classic Italian films like La Dolce Vita and The bicycle Thief and thoroughly enjoyed them. This intriguing cinema history mixed with my own Italian heritage makes me all the more inclined to spend hour upon hour at the Lavazza Film Festival. This year they brought a great range of films, everything from documentaries to dramas and even a short film. Held annually in October, the Italian Film Festival is a great way to wind up and prepare for the massive Brisbane International Film Festival in November. It is much more of a low key event, with a strong focus on the Italian film culture and community in Brisbane. You don't have to be Italian to go but you do have to appreciate the films that Italy produces and the ones they bring over with this festival are always of a high quality.

A good place to go for a walk on weekends. Lots of diverse plants and animals there. And they also…read moreoffer free walking tour several times a week. The place is really big. You can walk for several hours. Also picnic area they offer.

Beautiful place to spend a rainy afternoon. Fairly quiet with plenty to do. Spent a couple of hours…read moreexploring and didn't even touch certain sections. You must however visit the Bonsai house - my favorite!

If there are two things the French definitely do right, it is food and film. The Alliance Francaise…read moreFrench Film Festival is an annual event in Brisbane to celebrate the latter. Usually around April of each year, this film festival brings around 40 films to Brisbane Cinema screens (usually the Palace cinemas) for our viewing pleasure. These are generally films that have had a cinema release in France in the year since the last festival. In 2012 the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival will run from the 14th of March to the 1st of April. It is no hidden secret that I love film. I study it, write about it, and generally fill up as much of my spare time with it. Going to the cinema is a common past time of mine but I do love a good film festival. There is something about a festival that just brings the cinema going community together and allows films that would rarely see Brisbane screens a chance to play to an audience. My only problem is that there are normally so many films that I want to see at the French Film Festival that I find it hard to choose. Currently, there is a call for volunteers for the festival and while I have not volunteered for this one before I think I just might. There is just something so magnetic about this film festival for me that makes me want to consume every bit of it. Keep an eye out on the website for more details as the dates come closer.

Every year, the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival rolls around and I vow to "see more films…read morethis year than I did last year" but every year it would seem I'm just as poor as the previous year, and cannot justify the $15 or $17 it costs for one ticket. This year I have an Alliance Francaise membership card which will grant me 15% off all tickets. If you think you're going to see quite a few films throughout the festival, I recommend going into Alliance Francaise and getting one of these cards. It costs $53 for the year and if you're likely to get involved with things at Alliance Francaise, like their French conversation groups, it could work out to be worth your while. Palace is an expensive cinema to go to, but they run a pretty good show and are probably the only cinemas in town capable of hosting a film festival. You're always promised some good French films, plush seating and can even enjoy the comfort of taking your beer, wine or coffee into the film. After all, what would French cinema be without a good glass of red in front of you?