150 kites expected at youth festival

Over 150 kites are expected to grace the skies at the OneChance Anzac Kite Festival.

The Rotorua OneChance Youth Project (OCYP) is well under way with planning its annual youth development project to be held on Anzac Day.

The nine year-12 and 13 students from Rotorua Boys' and Rotorua Girls' High Schools have been planning and organising the OneChance Anzac Kite Festival to be held at the Ngongotaha Domain on Anzac Day to mark the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in 1915.

OCYP facilitator Alan Solomon said there would be more than 150 kites coming from around the country for the event.

"There will be professional kite flyers from around the country, there will be five hours of live entertainment, cultural performances, bands and solo performers, nine food stalls, bouncy castles, games and prizes."

Mr Solomon said the OCYP was now in it's third year and had been hugely successful in previous years.

"We have had a seminar for youth, a concert for youth, and this year we decided to make it a little bit bigger and do something for the whole community. A fun-filled family event."

Mr Solomon said kite festivals held in the past took a lot of organising.

"I met the organiser of the previous kite festivals, Ray McCully, back in August last year at an event we were speaking at. I asked him, if I had the students to organise a kite festival, would he be involved, and he said yes. So that's what we are doing. He made a kite for us about two weeks ago and came to show us how to fly it."

The event is free and open to the public from 12pm to 5pm Saturday, April 25 at Ngongotaha Domain.

-To find out more visit the project's Facebook pages.