THE GOROKA SHOW: “THE MOST COLOURFUL SHOW ON EARTH”!

Each year more than 100 groups from across PNG descend on Goroka in the Eastern Highlands for a two-day frenzy of face paint, dancing, feathers and photos. The Goroka Show is our country’s biggest ‘sing-sing’, the name given to a gathering of tribes or villages where they show off their distinct cultures. It is an explosion of song, colour, elaborate masks and body paint.

The shows were started in 1957 by Australian patrol officers known as kiaps and began as competitions to see which district was the best organised. Since then it has grown to become one of the PNG’s major tourism events. The Goroka Show is touted as “the most colourful show on Earth”. A tapestry of cultural diversity and a travel-photographer’s dream.