Illuminations Festival 2017: It all started because we wanted to create a festival for the children in Wynnum Manly

This will be the fourth outing for the festival, which has gone from strength to strength since the first festival held in 2014. Since then the show has got bigger and attendance has increased from around 10,000 people at the first one to around 15,000 people coming along to the 2016 Illuminations Festival.

The central feature of the Illuminations Festival every year is the lantern parade, where local children, schools and parents are all involved in the run up to the festival building a huge array of different lanterns. The very first Illuminations Festival held the parade from central Wynnum down to the waterfront and it was an amazing sight to see around 2,000 people walking down Edith Street to the Bay.

The festival draws on a long history of community events, especially parades through Wynnum and Manly, including the Spring Parade which ran for many years, and at its peak even featured an elephant walking down Edith Street.

Every year the Festival relies on the amazing generosity of sponsors which allows the event to remain free to attend and on the input of many local people volunteering their help and support free of charge.

Despite the fact that the festival continues to be supported by a Brisbane City Council grant and financial support from major sponsor RE/MAX Advantage Wynnum/Manly, the organisers have at this point not been able to secure enough financial support from the local business community as a whole to allow the event to go ahead in 2017.

This is where people power comes in! This year the Festival will be appealing to local residents and families as well as local businesses to raise a total of $25,000, which, with the sponsorship and support of Brisbane City Council and major sponsor RE/MAX Advantage, will allow the 2017 festival to go ahead.

'Unfortunately sponsorship dollars are increasingly hard to find for community events like the Illuminations Festival. explained festival director David Saunders. 'We would very much like to hold the festival again in 2017 but we have not been able to raise sufficient funds so far this year. With the crowdfunding campaign we are hoping local residents and families - and businesses - will get behind the campaign and see the festival run again. If each of the 15,000 people who came along to the last year's festival contributed $1.67 we would be able to cover all costs and put on another great festival this year.

Wynnum Manly Events Incorporated (WMEI) is seeking to raise $25,000 which is the short fall for the event. ALL money raised will be spent on making this fabulous event happen. WMEI is a no-for-profit association established in 2013 to bring events to the Wynnum and Manly area.

We at WMEI want this festival to be an event which all the children in Wynnum Manly look forward to every year. We want childhood memories made, romances to happen and all the visitors to fall in love with our beautiful area. For this to happen, the biggest challenge is continuous funding. WMEI plans to create more events in Wynnum Manly and to fund this festival for many years to come.