Kids go wild for Llanelli Dinomania

BRILLIANT sunshine shone down on  Llanelli on Wednesday (Apr 17) for the ‘Dino Dinosaur Day’.

Children, teens and adults all gathered on Stepney Street to take part in the festivities, which Started at 12 pm.

The event, which has been in planning for months was yet another, which brought the crowds into the town centre. . Children were delighted to see the colourful fairground ride and waited in line for free face-painting and balloon art. In addition to the ‘Rangers’ patrolling the makeshift pen, an authentic trophy hunter rode in on a bicycle that contained trunks containing bubbles and music!

Cheers erupted from the children glued to the stout metal barricades when the rangers brought forward the first dinosaur, an intimidating clawed monster with a feathered crown – from doting daddies with their babies on their shoulders to the toddlers on tiptoe, trying to see the action. One little boy said, “That looks like a turkey!”

He was not far off. Under the tent set up for the event booking company, ‘Dino4Hire’, there was an array of artefacts and treasures cased in glass, and behind them, a ceramic chicken. The labels tell of different kinds of dinosaurs, identify their fossils, and showcase their teeth, adding an educational bent to the prehistoric spectacle.

The crowd only diminished slightly when the show went on a break at 1 pm but began swelling again as snacks flew from the confectionery and into the hands of smiling revellers.

Organisers of the event, Ymlaen Llanelli, said that the turnout was great. “I had hoped we’d get this much people,” joked  Ymlaen’s Mandy Jenkins. She said that their events tended to be well attended. People were still talking about the Batman event that had been held a few months prior.

“The kids love it,” she remembered. “Especially little boys.”

Love it they did indeed. Between dinosaur shows, kids from 3 to ten years old swarmed the low barricade, straining for another view of the creatures. One had to ask, was the pen to keep the dinos in, or the children out?

Volunteers handed out leaflets detailing upcoming Llanelli events, particularly the  film event on the 18th of May and the December Reindeer Parade, which are also expected to be hugely successful.