With the Octagon jam-packed with people, the city centre was transformed into a light show of flickering insects, birds, bugs and night creatures too numerous to mention and too fantastic to describe.
In Bath St, before the show began, the smell of melting solder filled the night air as a long line-up of performers made last-minute adjustments to costumes of wire and papier mache.
Children held bright red ladybird and yellow bumblebee lanterns, and insect "cocoons", with flickering lights inside.
Alan Starrett, of Palmerston, stood in his ladybird costume, playing his violin, while Georgia McCaul and Odette Sim (both 8) stood expectantly with their lanterns.
"Putting the papier mache on," and "holding them now" was the most fun aspect of the project, they said.
Many of the performers had spent hours at community workshops putting the lamps together.
Watching the parade in the Octagon was a matter of jostling to find a spot, then peering over the shoulders of the many others doing the same.
"It's amazing; it's amazing" one woman said, while another described the spectacle as "magical".
The parade of bug-eyed, stilt-walking insect people, wetas, worms, moths and butterflies with huge, bright blue wings wound its way twice round the Octagon, before the night ended with fireworks from the Civic Centre.
