A welcome wagon of giant lanterns of all shapes and sizes have been rolled out in Brisbane to greet new refugees calling Queensland's ever growing multicultural community home.

The Luminous Lantern Parade has attracted thousands of people to South Bank over the years with its large, glowing interpretations of iconic animals, locations and characters.

For tonight's parade, which began at 5:30pm, some of the lanterns have taken the shape of a koala, elephant, Brisbane City Hall, an aeroplane and Barry Humphries' character Dame Edna Everage.

Some lanterns are up to six times their life size, and needed to be carried by up to eight people.

The parade is intended as a bright and colourful tribute to multicultural Queensland during Queensland Week, an annual celebration centred around the state's birthday.

The night will finish at South Bank's Piazza, with a free concert featuring world music and dancing.

Luminous was organised by the Multicultural Development Association (MDA), which works to settle newly-arrived refugees in Brisbane, Rockhampton and Toowoomba.

MDA chief executive Kerrin Benson said the night was about bringing the community together.

"Currently there's a lot of debates ... that really starts to frame up that Australia is not an overly welcoming country and that hasn't been our experience," she said.

"It's [the parade] about creating a space where majority of Queenslanders who are keen to welcome migrants and new arrivals can say 'yep, you're really welcome here'."

This year marks the eighth year of the parade, which began with just 50 people in a candlelight walk.

Last year's event saw more than 12,000 people turn out, and Ms Benson hopes this year they will see more than 20,000 before the night is done.

"It's become a really big parade with beautiful, illuminated lanterns," Ms Benson said.

The bigger lanterns were designed by Lighten Up, a community-based organisation in Lismore in northern New South Wales.

The smaller, hand-held lanterns have come from workshops run with TAFE students from the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP), which teaches new migrants how to speak English as well as about Australian society, culture, customs and work.

TAFE Queensland English, Language and Literacy Services executive director Helen Murphy said AMEP students had been involved in Luminous since its inception.

"Recently we've had students making lanterns in their classes and talking about their journeys to Australia," she said.

Ms Murphy expected about 150 students and their lanterns to participate this evening.

"Our students are all new arrivals and it's important to feel part of a bigger community and have that sense of welcome."

This morning, school children also had the chance to make lanterns as part of Little Luminous program.