After a nearly 20 year absence, the return of the Festival of Nations is being hailed a success.

The three-day event featured multi-cultural entertainment and vendors in Tecumseh Park, a parade, and live entertainment, headlined by 80s rockers Loverboy.

Co-chair Tracy Callaghan says plans are already in the works for next year.

“We had a lot of really great ideas, we had a short period of time to plan, we decided to do this late-January/early February,” Callaghan says. “With a year’s planning time we can pull some other pieces together, but I think we rocked it. But with a year’s planning time, you have a little more availability as well of some of the vendors and cultural groups.”

Officials say the event wouldn’t have been possible without the support of their sponsors and team of nearly 100 volunteers.

“We were cutting our teeth this year,” says co-chair Dava Robichaud. “Lots of comments on observations from some of the vendors with stuff we didn’t even think about.”

Robichaud says the majority of feedback they got was very positive with a number of entertainers and vendors planning to return in 2020.