Festive gathering a local leader established in Georgia (4)
I believe the answer is:
gala
'festive' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'gathering a local leader established in georgia' is the wordplay.
'gathering' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'leader' says to take the initial letters.
'established in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'georgia' becomes 'ga'.
The first letter of 'local' is 'l'.
'l' put inside 'ga' is 'gla'.
'a' inserted inside 'gla' is 'GALA'.
(Other definitions for gala that I've seen before include "Sports meeting" , "Special sports event" , "Public party" , "Festive celebration" , "Prod with the elbow" .)