10 March 2026
Holi Mela Parramatta 2026: seven hours of colour in the middle of the city
Prince Alfred Square disappeared under pink, yellow and green by lunchtime and stayed that way until closing. A look back at the day.
On Sunday 8 March, Prince Alfred Square turned pink. Then yellow. Then a shade of green that several people are probably still finding in the wash.
Holi Mela Parramatta ran from 10:30 in the morning to 5:30 in the afternoon, and by lunchtime it was hard to find a patch of grass that had not been claimed by colour.
What the day looked like
Colour throws on the hour, dhol players working their way through the crowd, live music from the main stage, and food and market stalls around the edges of the square. A dedicated kids' colour zone, shaded seating for grandparents who wanted to watch rather than participate, and organic colours only.
The photograph we keep coming back to is not of the stage. It is of a family sitting on plastic chairs on the grass — a grandmother in a sari covered head to toe in yellow, two small boys with water pistols, everybody laughing at something off-camera. That is the day, really.
See the full photo gallery from the day
Why Parramatta
Holding a mela in a public square in the middle of a city centre is harder than holding it in a hall. There is more paperwork, more coordination with council, more thought about crowd flow and noise and cleaning up afterwards.
It is worth it because of who turns up. A civic square is nobody's private space, which means people wander in who would never have bought a ticket to an Indian cultural event — office workers on their lunch break, families who came into town for something else, neighbours who heard the dhol from three streets away. Some of the best conversations of the day were with people who had no idea what Holi was when they arrived.
Thank you
To our stallholders, to the volunteers in the yellow shirts who were there before dawn and still sweeping at seven in the evening, to City of Parramatta, and to everyone who came and stayed until the last song.
Holi returns in 2027. Diwali Mela is at the same square on Sunday 1 November this year, and it is free.
