paul mallett advocates for making Launceston the state’s premier celebration city by treating joy as core civic infrastructure. That means designing, funding, and managing public celebration with the same seriousness we give to footpaths, lighting, and parks. It means clearing away barriers, supporting local organisers, and building a calendar that brings people together week after week.

Launceston already knows how to celebrate. Festivale. Junction. World Street Eats. The Night Markets. These are not small things. They are the moments when this city sees itself and likes what it sees. But celebration should not be occasional. It should be ordinary. A city that celebrates often, openly, and together is a city that stays confident, connected, and alive.

Picture a weekly Kanamaluka Market anchoring the waterfront. Smoke drifting from food stalls. Buskers, drum circles, kids running between stalls. Makers selling their work without worrying about rain, insurance shocks, or complex permits. Picture neighbourhood micro-festivals supported with small grants and shared equipment. Simple, predictable rules that make it easy to host something on your street or in your local park.

The aim is clear: more joy, more connection, more reasons to linger in town. A stronger local economy. Safer, more cohesive neighbourhoods. A city that feels vibrant because it celebrates itself often, openly, and together.

The Kanamaluka Market

paul is proposing a Sunday morning market beside the water, co-designed with locals, that gives the city a reason to gather every single week. A market is not just stalls. It is an investment in connection. It gives traders a customer, artists a stage, families somewhere to go, and neighbours a reason to meet without an agenda. Low-barrier stalls that open the door to local makers and micro-enterprises, and music and entertainment that keep the atmosphere alive and welcoming to everyone, regardless of income. Launceston has the waterfront setting, the food, the makers, and the community who love a good market. A market that can be as picturesque and vibrant as Salamanca. A showcase for the creativity of this valley. And an event where, week after week, the simple sentence becomes true: I will see you at the market.

Celebrating children and young people

A city that celebrates itself must celebrate its young people. paul wants Launceston to be a city that puts children on the main stage, not just as an audience but as contributors. Their ideas, their voice, their creativity need a platform. That means an annual Junior Citizen Award ceremony as a civic moment that recognises young people for what they are already doing, not just what they might become. A Five Minute Thesis Showcase where young Launcestonians present their ideas and research to community, industry, and council, and are taken seriously. And a Student Design Competition modelled on the Royal Society of Arts’ acclaimed student awards, where young people are given a real city brief and a real public stage for their answers. When a city celebrates what young people make and think and propose, and takes seriously what it hears, it tells them they belong here. That is how you build a generation that stays.

A civic calendar of celebrations

When the budget gets tight, events are often the first to go. paul believes they should be the last. Protect what Launceston loves: Festivale, Junction, World Street Eats, the Night Markets. Build what winter deserves: WinterFeast, a Vivid-style light festival, a Writers and Readers Festival, a Social Justice Lecture. Put kids front and centre: a Children’s Film Festival, the Kite Festival, music festivals made for families. Every festival is an investment in the relationships, the pride, and the shared identity that keeps a city vibrant and that a community draws on when times get hard. These are not add-ons. They are the civic heartbeat.

Neighbourhood street parties

You cannot fix loneliness with a program. But you can design the conditions for belonging. One of the simplest, cheapest, most effective things a council can do is make it easy for any street in the city to throw a block party. Micro-grants. Fast-tracked permits. An equipment loan kit with cones, barriers, staging, shade, and signage. Umbrella insurance. Multilingual templates. Accessibility support. Neighbours who know each other are less lonely, more likely to check in, faster to help when something goes wrong. You build that trust in peacetime. The block party is cheap. What it builds is not.

Joy as infrastructure

Festivals and street events belong in the city’s baseline budget, not in the discretionary pile that disappears when times get hard. Joy, colour, and cultural gathering are public goods with measurable returns: belonging, cohesion, confidence, and local spending. Organisers, volunteers, artists, and local businesses deserve stability. And the city deserves a civic life that stays vibrant even when conditions are tough.

Let’s build the celebration city

If we want to be Tasmania’s celebration city, we can build it. One gathering, one shared moment at a time.