Sichuan Events

Sichuan’s calendar combines the Chinese festival year with distinct Tibetan and Yi observances in the west and south.

Chinese New Year — late January or February

The year’s great event, and in Chengdu it fills the temple fairs at Wuhou and Daci with lanterns, food stalls and performances. The Zigong Lantern Festival, held in a southern Sichuan city with a four-hundred-year tradition of lantern-making, is the largest in China: enormous illuminated structures built from silk, porcelain and glass, some many metres high and assembled from thousands of medicine bottles or porcelain dishes wired together. It runs for weeks and the craft behind it is genuinely serious.

Litang Horse Festival — usually August

On the grassland at 4,000 metres, Khampa Tibetan riders gather for several days of racing, trick riding and display — standing on the saddle at a gallop, picking scarves from the ground — in full dress with coral and turquoise. It is a genuine community gathering and has been cancelled in some years for political reasons, so confirm before travelling for it.

Yi Torch Festival — July, Liangshan

The Yi new year observance, with bonfires, torch processions, wrestling, bullfighting and courtship dances lasting three days.

Temple fairs and Qingming — spring

Qingming in early April brings families to sweep graves and picnic beside them, and the teahouses and parks fill. Chengdu’s temple fairs at the Wenshu and Qingyang monasteries run through the spring festivals with vegetarian food, incense and opera, and are the everyday religious life of the city rather than an event staged for anyone.

Autumn at Jiuzhaigou — late October

Not a festival but a fixed window, and the reason the park’s booking system exists.