By Casey Neill
The Year of the Dog will start with a bang in Springvale.
Fireworks will cap off the Springvale Lunar New Year Festival on Sunday 11 February and firecrackers will be let off throughout the day.
The free annual Springvale Asian Business Association (SABA) celebration will take over Buckingham Avenue and surrounds for the 26th time from 10am to 10pm.
Daniel Cheng, president of the volunteer group, is expecting 65,000 people to attend this year’s celebrations.
That would be a 15,000 increase on the 2017 festival but short of the 90,000 in 2014.
This year there’ll be a second stage to showcase multi-cultural entertainment for the first time.
Competitions will run throughout the day and there’ll be more than 70 stalls filled with food and other goods along Buckingham Avenue.
The fireworks will erupt into the skies from the Buckingham and Queens avenue intersection at 9pm.
Martin Lee was SABA president for the inaugural festival in 1992 and opened the event with Cr Roz Blades.
“It was the brainchild of our founding president Hoang Tran,” he said.
“During his term as president there were too many other things because SABA was in its infancy.
“I took over as the second president and I decided to give it a go.”
Mr Cheng advised attendees to take a train to Springvale Railway Station and walk the 100 metres down to the festival area.
How did Springvale prepare for the Year of the Dog?
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