Plenty of fans for lunar party

A young couple pose for photos at a lantern shop. Picture: David Bonnici

Weekend rain failed to keep away eager festival-goers last week, making another St Albans Lunar Festival a huge success.

About 70,000 people packed St Albans town centre, eager to experience one of the biggest Lunar New Year festivals in Melbourne and soak up the food and entertainment on offer.

Organiser Ross Morfea said the festival got lucky when the rain eased, but the support was as strong as ever.

“We were setting up on Saturday night and it was raining heavily, but it cleared on Sunday morning and became a fantastic day,” Mr Morfea said.

“It was absolutely chocker-block mayhem on the day – you couldn’t move at 6pm there were that many people there.

“It was an absolute belter of a day. The food stalls were pretty much sold out by 8.30. Families were everywhere enjoying the entertainment … it’s a really multicultural day which is fantastic to see.”

The climax of the festival was a 20-minute fireworks show, which was well received by all.

Mr Morfea said planning would soon begin to top this year’s festival in 2019.

“I’m just starting to wind down now, but pretty soon we’ll start thinking of different things we can do,” he said.

“It takes a good six months to plan it and we always want to make the next one better.”