But businesses are being asked to get on board to make the Battle of Flowers 2006 bigger and better.
Up to 20,000 people lined Victoria Avenue yesterday as the Optimists took the Prix d’Honneur with their exhibit Merry Christmas, knocking St Clement off the top spot for the first time in three years.
The previously victorious parish were awarded three prizes, including the Prix d’Excellence, for their Turkish market place Souk.
The first ever Spectators’ Award, voted for by text message throughout the day, was won by St Mary’s Aztec Aurora with its spinning teepees and running waterfalls.
It was the first time the text vote had been part of the Battle, and 550 people voted, with St Mary clocking up 77 votes.
Islanders who took part in the carnival classes took the audience back to the Liberation.
Class winners included Esmé Layton, Deputy Bob Hill and family and Carole Wiseman, who appeared in the arena in a 1935 Morris Ten-Four.
Twenty-two floats took part in the carnival and Battle of Flowers Association chairman Bob Pallot said he thought the biggest event in the Island’s summer calendar had been ‘revived’.
