As the moon shines high above the Harbour City – reaching its brightest for 2024 on Wednesday, September 18 – World Square will come alive with the magical annual Mooncake Festival, with a heap of events playing out for twelve days of lunar-loving fun from Tuesday, September 17 to Sunday, September 29.
The time-honoured tradition of celebrating the September/ October full moon has played a role in many Asian cultures for centuries, and this September’s Mooncake Festival will bring that energy to Sydney CBD. Alongside an extensive array of mooncakes (obvs), the festival will bring a free film festival, live music and a glittering lantern display and so much more to World Square for twelve special days.
As the name would suggest, there’s a certain sweet (and occasionally savoury) treat at the heart of the festival. Mooncakes are a traditional Chinese and Cantonese delicacy: a biscuit-style cake filled with a thick, paste-like centre (with flavours ranging from egg yolk to matcha. Tradition holds that mooncakes should be given as gifts during this annual festival, and if you’re keen to enter into the spirit of things, we’d suggest heading along to World Square to stock up.
Alongside the mooncakes on offer, you’ll find a film festival screening free movies including Crazy Rich Asians, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom and My Neighbour Totoro. If movies aren’t your thing, you can turn to the live entertainment: with dragon dances, drums and lantern parades bringing big festival energy.
To symbolise the generous spirit of the festival, the organisers will be giving away 1,000 limited-edition gift boxes. They haven't confirmed what treats we should expect to find inside, but we've got our fingers crossed that they'll be filling them with mooncakes – it would seem rude not to.
The moon-centric festivities are going down at World Square from Tuesday, September 17 to Sunday, September 29 – you can learn more over here.