'Moomba' 1973 - 'Float parade' thru' the city

The Pallaris Collection contains 16mm colour footage of the Moomba parades in Melbourne from the 1950s to 1970s. Most films were shot by aspiring filmmaker John Christofi Pallaris, while some are credited to Reg Robinson.

Moomba Festival held its inaugural event through the streets and parks of Melbourne on 12 March 1955. The festival was designed as a public cultural event for the city, incorporating a street parade, a carnival and an outdoor art show, among other festivities. Throughout the 1950s to 1970s the grand parade down Swanston Street was at its peak, attracting crowds of hundreds of thousands of people and featuring a stream of decorated floats on flat-bed trucks advertising businesses and community groups, accompanied by marching bands, celebrities, clowns, and performers on stilts. The crowning of Moomba monarchs who lead the parade has been a tradition since 1955.

This 16mm film shows footage of the 1973 Moomba parade at the intersection of Victoria and Swanston Streets and captures the parade and crowds of onlookers as it passes through the city.

At the beginning of the film we see the 1973 King of Moomba, Sir Doug Nicholls (Yorta Yorta, 1906 – 1988), waving to the crowd from the back of a car, followed by the Queen of Moomba, Janice Bridgeford. Sir Doug Nicholls was a celebrated football player, pastor, and activist for First Peoples rights, and one of the founders of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (later the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders). He became Governor of South Australia in 1976 and was knighted in 1977.

The camera then follows the procession of floats, dancers, baton twirlers, stilt walkers, clowns, and other entertainers as they pass through the crowds of people down Swanston Street. Notable floats include the Wizard of Oz, Malta Travel Service, Clarke Mobile Cranes, Four’nTwenty Pies and ATV0, ‘Australia’s Action Station’.