Surrey’s Vaisakhi parade draws a record breaking crowd
Posted April 23, 2011 5:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – A record number of people turned out for the Vaisakhi parade in Surrey this afternoon for the biggest Vasaikhi celebration in the world outside of India.
The parade drew the largest crowd in the history of the parade. Over 150,000 people showed up for the festivities, which have been running for the past eleven years in Surrey.
If you’ve ever been to Disneyland on a holiday long weekend, that might give you a picture of how many people were crammed together. And that’s the key word – cramming. People were jammed together so closely that walking along 128th Street was nearly impossible.
Organizer Moninder Singh says, “This year is a lot bigger because of the long weekend and the good weather, but what we’ve seen is a massive increase in other communities joining in.”
He says there’s always a big crowd, but this year is extra big. “On one day, this many people getting together to celebrate this event. There is actually no other parade in the world bigger than this.”
Vaisakhi is a cultural celebration of the harvest and New Year, and is an important day marking the anniversary of Khalsa.
Mounties were out in big numbers as well. It was mostly for crowd control, but they also checked each float to make sure there was nothing controversial.
