The carnival served as the city's official kick-off to the Mela Festival, which will feature a week of activities leading up to the annual Mela Day spectacle on Sunday, August 27.

The greatest cultural variety festival in the North, Mela, which is now in its 17th year, celebrates with international music, dance, art, drama, wellness, and cuisine.

The fair featured floats pulled by musicians and dancers, many of whom were holding flags and sporting traditional attire. Drummers played outside City Hall as colourful smoke flares were let off.

Belfast's Lord Mayor Ryan Murphy and Belfast Mela creator Nisha Tandon led the procession of sculptures, music, and dance from around the world.

At City Hall, a global village included cooking, music, and art courses.

On the tenets of inclusion, innovation, and openness in all facets of society, ArtsEkta was established in 2006. In Sanskrit, ekta means to unite.

The organisation's mission is to unite communities by developing initiatives that encourage audiences to interact with the flavours, rhythms, and sights that define Northern Ireland's multicultural way of life.

“We are so proud to have been working with hundreds of artists and thousands of participants to produce this year's nine-day Belfast Mela Festival,” said Dr. Nisha Tandon, the festival's creator, and director of ArtsEkta.

This year's festival, which includes the magnificent new Colours event in the Botanic Gardens the Saturday before the festival's traditional Mela Day the following Sunday, truly has something to offer everyone.

The Botanic Gardens will be transformed into a global garden with the sights, sounds, and fragrances of nations throughout the world for the Mela Day Extravaganza next Sunday.

An estimated 60,000 people will go to Belfast during Mela, which is a Sanskrit term meaning “meeting.”