Lakes Entrance’s New Year’s festival was a huge success with around 40,000 people estimated to have lined the foreshore to welcome 2019.

The 9.30pm fireworks, carnival, market and food stalls and live entertainment made for an electric atmosphere for young and old and Lakes Entrance Events president, Alison Brewer, said the festival was bigger than past years.

“We’ve asked for feedback to get people’s views and all the feedback we’ve had so far, we didn’t have any problems on the night, it all ran very smoothly, and everyone has said they loved it,” Ms Brewer said.

“The food and market stalls were great, the entertainment, most have said they think it’s probably the best we’ve ever had, and as usual everyone loved the 9.30pm and midnight fireworks.

“This year it seemed that a lot more people were actually down on the foreshore. I don’t know the official figures but there certainly has been a lot more people, I would say, around Lakes in the last few days.

“I think with the weather - it wasn’t too hot, it was a very pleasant night - whenever I walked down and around there were people everywhere, so it was just good to see people enjoying it.”

Ms Brewer said the 9.30pm fireworks have grown in popularity significantly, however the midnight display continues to be well supported.

“It’s always very popular with families. Different people have asked whether we will keep the midnight fireworks and as long as we can afford to put them on we’d like to because it gives those people who haven’t got young children something else to watch,” she said.

Police praised the conduct of the revelers, with a virtually incident-free night.

“Considering the number of people in town, it was a large happy crowd,” Senior Sergeant, Matt Jenkins, of Lakes Entrance police, said.

Picture: Lakes Entrance welcomed 2019 with two spectacular fireworks displays at 9.30pm followed by the traditional midnight showing. Huge crowds lined the foreshore for the Lakes Entrance Events hosted festival, which featured food, and market stalls and live entertainment.