Hundreds gathered to watch the main event of the two-day event, Sunday’s procession, which included the mayor, town crier, a Spiderman Band, pirates and a host of other floats.
Along with the parade there were a number of fun shows and activities on the pier, as well as music, events and a funfair. The Christchurch Carnival is an annual event to raise money for local charities.
The event has been canceled for the past two years due to Covid, but organizers were keen to get it back up and running this year.
Organizer Tony Stivala said: “We’ve got quite a few groups coming, we’re hoping to have 15 to 20 standing floats instead of big floats.
“A lot of them have already turned up, given the weather is really hot, we were a bit worried that people wouldn’t make the effort, but it looks like they’re all coming.
“We should have a variety of cars, from brownies, dance groups, some pirates and some little racing cars, so hopefully that’s enough for everyone to have fun on the road.
“This is the first time we’ve done it since the shutdown, we’ve had a little bit of trouble getting people to interact with it, but we were hoping after they see this, next year we can make it bigger and better because we’ve been through 100 years and it would be a shame to fall by the wayside like a lot of them, so our little committee is really trying to keep it going as best we can.”
Mark Hetherington was with the Bournemouth Carnival Band, dressed as Spiderman. He said: “We love it, we always do it, this is the first time since 2019 because of the pandemic, but we usually do it every year, people always laugh and cheer.
“It’s our 40th anniversary this year, we practice in Southbourne every Thursday night and do carnivals all over the place. There’s about 35-40 of us at the moment and we’re always looking for new members.”
