QUINCY - A record crowd of 4,000 packed North Quincy High School for the 18th annual Quincy Lunar New Year Festival.

"This has gone from the Asian community celebrating their new year to the kind of an event that the entire city enjoys as a celebration of diversity," Mayor William Phelan said.

The five-hour event turned the high school into a wall-to-wall celebration of Asian culture yesterday.

It included an array of dance and musical performers, young and old; and a variety of ethnic food.

Businesses, churches and organizations lined the gymnasium with vendor booths.

Asian residents of Quincy and Chinatown said they came to get in touch with their roots; others were there to teach their children or themselves about different cultures.

"It's a cross-generational, cross-cultural event," said Tackey Chan, a founding board member of Quincy Asian Resources, the nonprofit organiztion that puts on the annual event.

John Brothers, executive director of Quincy Asian Resources, said turnout this year was the largest ever, reflecting the richer-than-ever arry of entertainment.

By 12:30 p.m. organizers had counted 1,600 attendees. Crews handed out brochures with the day's performance schedule to the scores of people who were entering through the front doors. Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling and Asian art lined the walls in the school's foyer, where the sound of Boston-based Cin Ngai Music Association, a Cantonese opera group, billowed from a small auditorium.

Inside, Siu-Lin Leung was belting out the score; accompanied by a dozen Asian string instruments.

In a room next door, Quincy residents Clare Lee, 22, and Jennifer Look, 25, were readying the event's youngest performers, a group of 4- to 6-year-old Asian dancers from the Wang YMCA in Boston.

"It's great that the community can gather to organize an event like this," Lee said.

Meanwhile, in the gymnasium, hundreds of spectators sat in bleachers watching women from the Chu Ling Dance Academy. Clad in red satin costumes and ornate head pieces, they performed a traditional Chinese folk dance.

The Asian Lunar New Year is celebrated at the end of the annual cycle of new moons, and each new year is named for one of 12 animals. According to legend, the Lord Buddha once summoned all animals to come to him. When only 12 came, he rewarded them by naming each year for them. This year is the Year of the Dog.

Quincy Asian Resources promotes development of the Asian-American community. for more information, call 617-472-2200 or go to qari.info.