The ceremony was attended by the municipal authorities and local Most Venerable, Venerable, superior bronzes, monks and nuns and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh from the Lang Mai Village in France led nearly 400 monks and nuns.

Addressing the ceremony, Venerable Thich Thien Nguyen, deputy head of the Da Nang Buddhist Church said the Quan The Am (Goddess of Mercy) Festival is a cultural carnival, which is imbued with not only the Buddhist culture but also national identity.

The festival, officially recognized as one of the 15 largest festivals in Vietnam, is held annually in Da Nang’s Ngu Hanh Son tourist site, featuring a number of religious and cultural activities.

During this year's festival, a calligraphy balloon, which is 36m long and 1.8m wide and the 19-page Goddess of Mercy pictorial, measuring 2.331m in height and 2.007m in width were recognised as the largest ever in the country by the Vietnam Centre for Book on Records.

The Quan The Am Festival was first held in 1960.