Brisbane Festival ends with a big Riverfire bang Brisbane's skyline lights up for Riverfire. As the Brisbane Festival went out with a bang during Saturday night's Riverfire, organisers were basking in the glow of a record year. Police estimated the crowds at Saturday night's Riverfire were "bigger than Brisbane's New Year's Eve," but declined to estimate the crowd numbers. More than an estimated 1 million people attended the Brisbane Festival's program in 2013, including about 400,000 at the City of Lights laser and light show. Cameron, 9, and Courtney, 17, Strydom from Redland Bay with Kyle, 12, and Ryan, 16, Basson, from Capalaba, have settled in to watch Riverfire. On Saturday, organisers were expecting 500,000 to crowd into the city's heart and up on to Highgate Hill to watch the fireworks. Police on Sunday morning said only one person was arrested at South Bank Parklands on Saturday and that was at 10.30pm, well after the fireworks. The man allegedly bit a police officer and faces six charges, including two counts of seriously assaulting a police officer and one count of obstructing police. People set up early at Kangaroo Point to nab the best spots to watch Riverfire. He will appear in Brisbane Magistrates court on Monday morning. Another woman bumped into a police bike and fell, but was not injured. Overall police and ambulance crews described Saturday's Riverfire crowds as "very well behaved." Riverfire fans ready to enjoy the show. It's been a recent meteoric rise for the Brisbane Festival, which launched in 1996 from the ashes of the Warana Festival. Since festival artistic director Noel Staunton took the reins in 2010, ticket sales have almost tripled. "What all this indicates to me is that Brisbane is taking ownership of the festival and it works for people," Staunton said as the festival came to a close. The economic impact of the 2013 Brisbane Festival was hard to accurately measure, but Staunton said he had plenty of evidence to suggest it was a lucrative event for the city. "Anecdotally, I have talked to maybe a hundred people that have come from interstate," he said. Like (on Thursday), we went to the theatre of Ajax and Little Iliad and there were six people there that had flown in from Sydney to see the show and that's just one example. ..."I can happily put my hand on my heart and say a lot of plane tickets and hotels have been booked because of the festival." Queensland Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey, in Melbourne for the AFL Grand Final, commended the festival organisers for "the variety and quality" of the program. "What I see is Brisbane really putting a stamp as a cultural precinct to be envied," she said. What's really fantastic is that the local community is embracing it and for me, from a tourism perspective of course, it's great to see visitors being able to put that in their diary as part of their trip to Queensland. with Tony Moore