Street Food Live, described as Australia’s largest street food festival, opens tonight on the lawns of Old Parliament House, and runs for the next 10 days, as part of the Enlighten Festival.

The event’s website promises “diverse, distinctive, and exciting flavours from gourmet food trucks, global food stalls, artisan desserts, and hand-crafted beverages”.

But some locals are concerned that event organisers are supporting Sydney and Melbourne vendors at the expense of Canberra businesses. Why, one reader wonders, did a gelato limousine come from Sydney last year when there are excellent gelaterie in Civic?

“Who wants to support local enterprise, local ingenuity, local jobs when we can farm them out to interstate companies?” filmmaker Emmanuel Stefanou asked.

• Enlighten Festival blasts back to Canberra (3 March)
• Hounds of heaven fly over Canberra’s Enlighten Festival (24 February)
• Check out Canberra’s Enlighten Festival 2023 line-up (10 February)
• Have a gay time: Enlighten Festival celebrates Pride (10 January)

An ACT Government spokesperson stated that 44 of the food vendors this year are local, and 17 come from interstate.

Events ACT ran two competitive EOI processes for food vendors for Enlighten Festival 2023, the spokesperson said.

The first was for a curated food festival experience, focused on the Enlighten Illuminations. Street Food Live was successful in this process, and features 14 interstate food providers.

A second process was run for individual food vendors for Enlighten Illuminations (Festival hub), Lights! Canberra! Action!, Canberra Balloon Spectacular, Symphony in the Park, and Canberra Day.

The government received 95 applications for this. Of the 44 successful ones, 41 are local, and three come from interstate.

All the vendors at Symphony in the Park and Canberra Day are local.

Graham Catt, CEO of the Canberra Business Chamber, said that in general, local businesses were frustrated to see their local government buying in services from interstate, when a local company could have supplied the same service.

“We need our governments to get value for taxpayer dollars and manage their risks appropriately, but when a local business can provide value and meet the brief, we should have policies to ensure that they are the beneficiaries of this investment,” Mr Catt said.

“Plenty of these businesses are still dealing with the challenges of inflation, supply chain disruptions, and workforce shortages.

“Every time the government funds out-of-town businesses to deliver services that could be provided by locals, we miss an opportunity to show our support for local businesses, our economy and community.”