News Service from House Harris

Vic: Revellers see out 2008 the white way

MELBOURNE, Dec 31 AAP - All dressed in white, it was hard to know if revellers at the Sensation dance party in Melbourne were trying to whitewash a tough year just gone or start 2009 afresh.

Either way, up to 40,000 of them stepped out to end 2008 in style at Melbourne's Telstra Dome.

The arena was transformed from an indoor AFL stadium to a smoke-filled cauldron filled with lights, pounding dance grooves and a dance floor teeming with white-clad partygoers for Sensation, billed as one of Australia's biggest New Year's Eve parties.

Revellers paid up to $210 a head to attend the $4.6 million dance party.

They were treated to a bevy of DJs through the night, performances by acrobats and, for a lucky few, a sit-down meal.

The centrepiece was a 20-metre high, illuminated tree, the Oak of Love, with twisting branches and heart-shaped leaves spreading overhead.

Large contingents of police and security guards swept the main concourse outside the stadium.

In the space of a few minutes early in the evening, several men were searched and questioned, and one was led away in handcuffs as a sniffer dog combed the crowd streaming in from Southern Cross railway station.

Inside, paramedics, police and about 220 crowd controllers patrolled the floor.

For Matt Seaborn and friend Troy Baylor, it was a night to remember.

"This is the best night of my life, it's the best party ever," Mr Seaborn said.

Shauna Donnelly, a dance party regular, was impressed with the scale of Sensation and by the security presence.

"Everywhere you go, someone is protecting you. I just like to dance. I don't like the bad stuff that happens and I feel so safe," she said.