At eleven years old, she’s too young to need a resume, but ‘float designer for the biggest parade in the southern hemisphere’ has a certain ring to it. Or should we say, a certain ‘buzz’ about it?
By Lisa Bachmayer
Ardtornish Primary School student Lia Mewett has won the 2024 National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant’s Mini Float Competition with her bee-utiful design ‘Bee Merry’.
Chosen from more than 400 entires, Lia’s float design features a large beehive nestled amongst grass and flowers, accompanied by characters dressed in bee and honey pot costumes.
It has now been brought to life as a mini float – a small, mobile set light enough to be pushed or pulled along the route – and will create a buzz on the streets of Adelaide when it joins 170 other theatrical sets for the 2024 pageant on Saturday 2 November 2024.
Every year, primary school students have the chance to win a money-can’t-buy pageant experience by submitting their own mini float design. It can be a hand-drawn or digital drawing in full colour, or a model of the design.
Lia says her design, which she hand-drew with pencils on paper, was inspired by the sunshine associated with an Australian Christmas as well as her concern for the environment.
“It’s a cute design and I thought everyone would like it, because it’s a recognisable, memorable and colourful float,” she says.
“I feel like there are not many floats that are similar.
“I just went outside, saw the bees and thought we should save the bees because they are reducing in numbers. It made me think about their importance in the environment.”
The prolific drawer and budding artist says her friends were “very supportive about me winning and excited” about her prize, which includes a $500 cheque from National Pharmacies and a behind-the-scenes tour of Stardust Castle, where all the floats are stored and the magic happens.
“That was really amazing,” she says. “I got to see the costumes, the floats – they’re pretty big – and some of the new floats they were building.
“It was really cool to see the whole place in action.”
Her mum Crystal was pleased to hear Lia also won reserved seating for her family and friends on pageant day, and joked about not having to get there “too early this year”.
She says Lia was “very invested in the competition”, spending a lot of time on her design and constantly asking if the winner had been announced.
“I wasn’t expecting to hear anything until one day I checked my email and I couldn’t believe it,” Crystal says. “I was very shocked and surprised.”
Watch the 2024 Mini Float Reveal video below:
You can see Lia’s ‘Bee Merry’ mini float when the National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant takes over the streets of Adelaide on Saturday 2 November 2024.
READ MORE ABOUT THE 2024 NATIONAL PHARMACIES CHRISTMAS PAGEANT
For more information and all enquiries please visit the National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant website.
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
Image Source: supplied
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