Back to Botanic for Belfast Mela

The traditional Belfast Mela Festival will make a welcome return to Botanic Gardens on Sunday 28 August this year for a special Mela Day, sponsored by Sensata Technologies.

Botanic Gardens will once again be transformed into a global wonderland of music, dance, food and art from 12 noon until 6pm hosted by U105’s Carolyn Stewart and UTV’s Paul Reilly who are pictured in Botanic Gardens this week with ArtsEkta founder Nisha Tandon and bollywood dancer Dona Das Gupta with little Noa (9) Amelia (8) and Aria (4) to announce this year’s Belfast Mela Festival plans.

In addition, a weeklong series of events will take over the city starting with an opening Mela Carnival Parade on Saturday 20 August through the streets of Belfast and a free family day in the grounds of City Hall afterwards, along with an extended schedule of daily events throughout the city all week, in the lead up to the big finale with Mela Day on Sunday 28^th August.

Nisha Tandon, OBE, Founder and CEO of ArtsEkta who created the Belfast Mela in 2007 says: “We are absolutely delighted to announce our return to Botanic Gardens for the last Sunday in August after a break of two years due to the pandemic. However, the success of last year’s Mela Festival Week means this year will be our biggest ever with events taking place over eight days to celebrate our city’s growing cultural diversity like never before.

“One of the big changes for 2022 is that all tickets must be pre-booked, as we will no longer be able to accept payment at Botanic Gates on the Sunday, so it’s important people buy now to avoid disappointment. We will be announcing more details of all the wonderful events we have planned when we have our launch in August, but for now we just want to celebrate our return to Botanic Gardens, it really has been too long.”