Dave Edgar, Director of Youth Alive Victoria, said so many young people responded to the gospel that they couldn’t all fit at the front.

Organisers had to send them to the foyer to be followed up by volunteers.

“There were so many young people responding to the gospel that the foyer was absolutely jammed,” said Edgar.

With about 5000 youth in attendance, one in ten requested Bibles. “We were able to give out 530 Bibles, donated by Bible Society Australia, which was pretty cool,” he said.

Edgar said Youth Alive wanted to make ‘next generation’ converts, so it had given away about 1000 tickets to the event at high schools and youth groups. The aim was to encourage Christian kids to invite their non-Christian friends.

“Some business people paid for these tickets and they wanted them to get into the hands of kids who aren’t saved, so if a youth ministry brought 20 kids, we’d give them an extra five tickets to help them grow their youth ministry – and kids … could invite their friends.”

“We wanted to make certain that we had the right demographic in the room to respond.”

He said the new converts would be followed up by local churches and invited to attend Youth Alpha.