New Taipei City Events

The calendar here is shaped by the lunar year and by one festival that has become internationally known.

Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival — fifteenth day of the first lunar month

On the night of the Lantern Festival that closes the lunar new year, thousands of paper lanterns are released together from the Pingxi valley, rising in waves above the hills. The custom began here in the nineteenth century as a practical signal between villages in bandit country, and was reinvented as a wish-carrying ritual: participants brush hopes onto the four sides of the lantern in ink, light the fuel cell underneath, and let it go. Mass releases are staged at set times through the evening at Pingxi and Shifen, with tickets for the organised launches and free releases from the shops along the railway line. It is genuinely beautiful and genuinely crowded — the branch railway cannot cope, shuttle buses run from Taipei, and getting out again at the end of the night takes hours. Biodegradable lanterns are increasingly used, and the debris clean-up afterwards is organised by the district.

Sanxia Zushi temple festival — sixth day of the first lunar month

A traditional pig-offering competition and temple procession, which is spectacular and which some visitors find difficult.

Ghost month — seventh lunar month

Offerings outside shops and houses, and releases of water lanterns at Tamsui and along the coast.

Fulong sand sculpture — May to July

An international competition on the beach at Fulong, with a music festival attached in summer.