Colour takes the night (+video)

FUN: Cousins Jazmin Aroha (front left), 5, Corbyn Tauarua (front right), 7, and Lia Te Whare (back left), 11, loved playing with the bubbles. PHOTO/BEN FRASER

Art, music and performance have danced together in a symphony of colour in Rotorua.

Now in its second year, Colour the Night, the one-night arts event, is celebrating local people in local spaces at the Rotorua Arts Village tonight.

Arts Village manager Mary-Beth Acres said the main goal was to bring locals out to enjoy and participate in the arts world.

She said with entry free people were lined up at the door before the event even began. With 2000 people attending last year, she hoped to top that tonight.

"It's been really fun, people are getting into it. We have free hot chocolates towards the end of the night and we are open until 9pm.

"The families doing the trail is probably my favourite thing about the night. Seeing the parents getting out in the winter with their kids, it's great."

Colour the Night is based on the Nuit Blanche ("white night") concept, an annual all-night summer arts event that began in Paris and is now in cities throughout the world.

Other locations around the city joining the celebration by doing something different than their usual functions such as art installations in the band rotunda on Queens Drive and musicians playing in the Blue Baths.