Annual White Night festival expected to draw 700,000 partygoers to Melbourne

Up to 700,000 Australians are expected to flock to Melbourne's city center on Saturday evening, when the White Night art festival returns to wow audiences from sundown to sunrise.

The event, which is in its fourth year in Melbourne, runs from 7:00 p.m. local time on Saturday evening and ends at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, with world-renowned art, dazzling light shows and projections, and music set to thrill night owls.

Crowds for the now-annual event have averaged half a million people for the three previous White Night festivals, and artistic director Andrew Walsh said the 2016 installment was going to be the biggest yet.

He told Fairfax Media that festival organizers have put in place new and improved crowd management techniques to cope with the expected rush.

"We've learnt about where those crowds gather," Walsh said on Friday.

"We know there's nothing we can do about it in terms of numbers, so we have to try to manage the flow."

Walsh said even though the festival runs throughout the night, the best time to visit the city was in the early hours, when the light shows, music and art exhibitions would still open but many revelers have headed to bed.

"10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. is the busiest time of the night, some of the shows are finishing and people are coming out of them, people are finishing dinner," he said.

"It's quieter, not substantially quieter, but quieter at the early hours of the morning.

"But I think that's the most beautiful time actually, and leading up to sunrise. The sunrise last year was just breathtaking."

The event, Walsh said, was just an excuse for interested local to "hang out with the rest of Melbourne."

"It's a 12-hour event, you don't need to turn up at 7:00 p.m., turning up in the middle of the night is as good a thing to do as turning up as the beginning or the end, and that's the joy of it really."

The White Night festival kicks off in Melbourne on Saturday. Endit