Did Canberra finally throw off the shackles of overly-managed, bureaucratic events that are O-H-and-S-ed to the point that all life and soul are sucked out of them?

Did we, maybe, do something spontaneous, something life-filled that did not require a security fence, clearance lanyard and a $100 ticket price?

Well, this is the planned city of Canberra so Wednesday's festivities were not completely without a little forward thinking.

Campaign group Australian Marriage Equality did gain approval from the ACT government for the "Official Canberra Results Event" to be held in Lonsdale Street, which included getting permission to close part of the iconic street for the party.

Australian Marriage Equality ACT organiser Jacob White only last Wednesday sent out the feelers raising the possibility of a party.

The paperwork was all done between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, without fuss and bother.

There was also $20 million worth of public liability insurance in place, not an easy thing to manage at the last minute and thanks largely to the clout of Australian Marriage Equality.

And Access Canberra actually quietly and easily put in place much of the underlying necessities for a large crowd including traffic control and emergency services being alerted.

The end result was an organised party that didn't feel like one.

In the spirit of the marriage equality postal vote, the ensuing celebration of the results - the unequivocal "yes" vote - turned out to be a truly democratic affair.

Lonsdale Street amid all the glitter and rainbows and dancing to George Michael, was a place where everyone could come and gather and celebrate unity.

The free-wheeling nature of the event was summed up by the sight of our fearless leader chugging a beer.

I mean, come on, Chief Minister Andrew Barr's tenure as leader of the ACT must be now assured indefinitely.

And his skol was infinitely more elegant than Bob Hawke and his schooners. Barr downed a Corona. With a slice of lemon in it, people.

Like New Acton, Lonsdale Street has been at the epicentre of the renewal of Canberra, of the upending of expectations that the national capital is stuffy, overly planned, a bit of a party pooper.

Braddon and New Acton are planned, yes, but they have the feel of being organic. They are areas where private enterprise has been allowed to do its thing and the end result is something that reveals the new Canberra. Young. Hip. Individual. Where, in the case of Braddon, not even a generation ago it was dowdy street of caryards. (Having said that, private enterprise can also dominate neighbourhoods.The Canberra Centre anyone?)

Jacob White, who has worked for Labor MP Andrew Leigh, is actually an urban planner. How people use public spaces is his thing.

The historic nature of Wednesday - when Australia voted 61.6 per cent in favour of the law being changed to allow same-sex couples to be married - undoubtedly affected the nature of that night's party. The ACT led the nation with a 74 per cent yes vote, which only upped the desire to party.

It will be difficult to find another event that will spark such an outpouring of joy and encourage Canberrans to dance in the streets on an unusually balmy evening.

However, Jacob White is hopeful that same spirit of spontaneity can be repeated at future events in the national capital.

"Wednesday was a very special moment but I think we can do that," he said.

"There are things that can be improved. Public liability insurance, for one, is very expensive and impractical for small groups to obtain at the last minute.

"Access Canberra, however, has become very good at doing the underlying organisation of events.

"Having a central agency coordinating all that stuff, informing emergency services, organising the insurance, having someone to clean up, is really important. There's more they can do but they have really come from nothing.

"We also need more people in the city, denser populations are going to help. It's really hard to organise something with suburban populations, when the city is all spread out.

The government also needs to be "a little bit more relaxed with the concept of risk". And of kowtowing to the squeaky wheel.

"We need to be unafraid of the single noisy resident who objects. The one business on the street who doesn't want the event. The one person who is upset they won't have a car spot for an afternoon," White said.

"People only get loud when they are annoyed. There are a lot of people who will never voice an opinion and will happily turn up to an event."

There is little doubt Canberra is coming of age as a sophisticated city and Wednesday night in Lonsdale Street proved that again.

The party was centred outside the Hopscotch pub which summed it all up on its Facebook page on Thursday:

"They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well Canberra it took the help and support of a whole city to pull off this event".