It's estimated 50,000 people paid a visit to the villages open during the first weekend of the Carrousel of the Nations in Windsor-Essex.
The Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County (MCC) launched the 50th annual Carrousel of the Nations this past weekend.
MCC Executive Director Fred Francis says an estimated 50,000 people visited the 20 villages that were open during the first weekend.
Francis says they've already seen a lot of sell-outs.
"The Polish Village, they went through 35,000 perogies and 1,500 sausages, and they had 350 volunteers," he says. "The Greek Village had over 10,000 visitors throughout the weekend and 200 volunteers. The Mexican Village, 1,000 attendees."
Francis says some of the villages were reporting line-ups around the block.
"Everyone is reporting really high numbers, in most cases record numbers," he says.
This year there are 37 villages taking part across this region, which will continue the weekend of June 20 to June 22.
Francis says the second weekend is usually bigger than the first weekend of the festival.
"On Saturday, we had 36,000 unique visits to our website, Carrousel of Nations dot com, 10,000 from the Toronto area alone," he says. "We've never seen numbers like that before online. So far, we're more than pleased, more than ecstatic. Everything is tracking really, really well for weekend number one."
There are seven new additions to this year's festival, including an Irish Village in Amherstburg.
Many villages are running for both weekends, including the Greek Village, the Caribbean Village, the Mexican Windsor Village, and the Middle Eastern Village.
Click here to find more information about the festival.