Much of the crowd had come along on the night for the second ticket draw in the Grow Coly – Win a Car competition.

The gala night is an annual event in Coleambally and usually attracts a large crowd. However, like a lot of community events in recent years, numbers have started to dwindle.

But this year, with the enticement of the car competition, crowd numbers soared in a reminder of times before the drought.

There was a real buzz in the crowd and a general festive feeling as the community came together to celebrate Christmas and hopefully take home some prizes.

Santa made an appearance and was swamped by kids eager to get their hands on some lollies.

At 8pm the crowd waited in anticipation as another five lucky people were drawn from the huge number of entries that had accumulated in the car competition.

Five people were then called from the crowd – John Pound, Leslie Martin, Deidre Baheramsjah and Jane Stuckings, who is now lucky enough to hold two tickets after her name was drawn on Late Night Shopping.

The unexpected highlight of the night wound up proceedings when local Wayne Krause offered to entertain the crowd with traditional Aboriginal stories and music. He also got the kids involved, teaching them some Aboriginal dances.