Hundreds of people gathered yesterday to see the historic Waking of the Dragon ceremony.

The annual event has been part of Bendigo’s Easter Festival for 118 years, starting with Loong, the oldest imperial dragon in the world.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Sun Loong, the world’s longest imperial dragon, who replaced Loong in 1970.

The ceremony is unique to Bendigo and includes performances by the Bendigo Chinese Association dragon and lion teams and traditional Chinese dancers.

They were joined by the Chinese Youth Society of Melbourne for the performances.

The ceremony awakened Sun Loong from his year-long slumber, ready for today’s Bendigo Advertiser Easter parade.

The two-hour ceremony finished with the traditional setting off of the 100,000 crackers, creating enough noise to wake the sleeping dragon.

Golden Dragon Museum general manager Anita Jack said the ceremony had again been popular.

“Next year we’ve got the new forecourt and the 20th anniversary of the museum so it’s only going to get bigger and better.

“It’s going to be pretty amazing.”Ms Jack said the Bendigo Chinese Association had been successful in raising almost $1000 for Bendigo Health as part of their awakening of the dragon appeal.

“It went very well. We’ve had lots of donations from the public and from the businesses.“We had 15 businesses donate.”