Despite late changes to the destination venue, which impacted its fundraising potential, and the still incomplete replacement of lanterns damaged in last year’s floods, Saturday’s parade was ‘the biggest and best ever’, according to organiser Jyllie Jackson.
‘We are still working on the damage from the flood and finishing rennos on the new building and fixing favourite lanterns,’ Ms Jackson told Echonetdaily.
‘The wonderful people from the Northern Rivers Rainbow Dragon Boat crew spent a month stripping, cleaning and repapering the big dragon they carry each year and she looked pristine, will work on the decorations over the year,’ she added.
‘The very cute Mika-chu lantern created for the Japanese Sister City delegation from Yamato Takada was a firm favourite and the Owl won the People’s Choice vote, followed by old favourites Dirt Girl (recently spruced up) and Mother Earth.
But Ms Jackson added this year was very challenging ‘as we were told we could not use Oakes Oval only in March, leaving us just three months to totally reimagine the festival and cop the loss of $23,000 in gate takings with no time to find alternative funding or sponsors.’
‘So a pretty it was a miraculous effort to create such an amazing wonderland. The Lismore Lantern Parade has the most fantastic team and supporters – what a community!
Ms Jackson said the crowd numbered ‘easily over 30,000’, so many that a police car could not get through the crowd at one point and ‘had to go down the other road, which sadly upset a lot of people, for which we are very sorry’.
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