Latest Events in Sichuan(February Updated)

The 2026 Chengdu International Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition will be held from January 28 to March 3 at the International Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo Park. This exhibition brings together equipment matrices from various military branches including naval, land, air, and rocket forces, featuring highly anticipated national treasures such as the "20 Series" fighter jets, aircraft carrier battle groups, and Dongfeng series missiles, comprehensively showcasing the achievements of modern national defense construction. The exhibition features a special section dedicated to decrypting military equipment from the Russia-Ukraine battlefield, offering in-depth analysis of modern warfare evolution. Meanwhile, the VR all-domain combat experience capsule immerses visitors in the multidimensional battlefield, showcasing aerial-space confrontations, deep-sea hunts, and ground assaults. With engaging displays and a youth national defense knowledge challenge, this professional exhibition becomes both dynamic and entertaining. Additionally, the family interactive experience zone features a specially designed New Year Garden Party and creative DIY workshops, offering a perfect blend of national defense education, science popularization, and family bonding activities. This must-attend event promises fun for all ages!

The 55th Chengdu International Panda Lantern Festival will light up and welcome visitors in early February 2026 at Xifeng Island, Dong'an Lake, Longquanyi District, Chengdu. The "Panda Lantern Festival" originated from the "Chengdu Lantern Festival" established in 1962, making it one of China's longest-running city-level lantern festivals that carries generations' vibrant New Year memories. This year's festival, themed "Sichuan Lanterns Illuminate the World · Dreamy Dong'an Lake," explores and innovatively revitalizes resources and values from "national treasure culture, Shu Road culture, Three Kingdoms culture, poetry culture, post-horse culture, and Hakka culture." Spanning over 330 acres on Xifeng Island, it features a dazzling "five zones, one center" lantern display route: "Sichuan Lanterns Open a New Chapter," "Prosperous Splendor of Jin City," "Galloping Hooves on Shu Roads," "Fragrant Peach Blossoms of Ancient Post Stations," "A Thriving Year of Happiness," and "The Summit of Xifeng."

The 32nd Zigong International Dinosaur Lantern Festival will open at China Lantern World on January 24, 2026. This year's lantern festival, themed "Illuminating China, Building Dreams for the Future," features 10 major sections including "Chinese Knot Boulevard," "Fortune Square," "Mulan Legend," "Artisan Intangible Heritage," and "Magical China." With 11 large-scale lantern installations and over 200 medium and small lantern displays, it creates an immersive celebration blending intangible cultural heritage techniques with cutting-edge digital technology, offering visitors an artistic panorama of "Harmonious Coexistence." This is a spectacular lantern festival blending ancient and modern elements, where Zigong lanterns, tie-dyeing, paper-cutting, and other intangible cultural heritage techniques are deeply integrated with Chinese mythological epics and classic historical tales. Centered around the imagery of the Year of the Horse, numerous folk stories, ancient legends, and cultural elements will be brilliantly showcased through the lantern displays. The "Chinese Knot Gate" lantern installation, standing 35m tall and inspired by traditional Chinese knots, achieves visual harmony from both front and back views, resembling a time portal connecting past and present. The massive "Mystical China" lantern set, approximately 210m long, draws from Zhuangzi's grand imagery of the Kunpeng fish-bird, using mythological storytelling to showcase national strength and ethnic pride. The 22m-tall "Yearly Fortune" Nian Beast lantern features AI interactive systems, enabling heartwarming "conversations" between humans and this ancient auspicious creature. For the upcoming Year of the Horse, the 180m-long "Mulan's Legend" installation—based on the Ballad of Mulan—pairs dynamic horse sculptures with Mulan's heroic bearing, conveying profound patriotic sentiment. This is a creative world where "everything can become a lamp,"This year's lantern festival pushes creative boundaries by incorporating eco-friendly recycled materials like blue-and-white porcelain, straw, medicine bottles, and chili peppers, alongside local cultural elements and trendy materials such as pipe cleaners into themed lantern displays. Not only does it showcase the concept of "turning waste into treasure," but it also revitalizes ordinary materials through intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship, embodying the cultural essence of "everything has a spirit, and masterful artistry unites all." In the "Imagine the Future" section, the dreamy lantern display "Fantasy Lantern Collection" draws inspiration from children's artwork, featuring nearly 6,000 paintings by kids worldwide. Skilled lantern artisans, like modern-day "Magic Paintbrush Ma Liang," transform these imaginative drawings into vibrant lanterns. These creations transcend skin color, age, and nationality, using light and shadow as a bridge to connect children's innocent dreams globally, planting the seeds of "Zigong lanterns" across the world. This is an immersive experience powered by technology across all scenarios. The lantern festival breaks traditional viewing modes, focusing on "technological innovation + interactive experience" by incorporating AI interaction, smart touch controls, and light-sensing technology, allowing visitors to personally trigger changes in light, shadow, and sound effects. A cross-border alliance of virtual digital humans and scenes combining bionic robotic dinosaurs with AR technology transports visitors through time for an interactive journey. Technology seamlessly connects "viewing, playing, sensing, and reflecting," revitalizing millennia-old lantern traditions in the digital age. Additionally, the 300-meter-long "Salt Street Lantern Market" has been transformed into an exclusive themed Trip Moments street, featuring diverse photo spots such as ancient-style pavilions, cyber light installations, and folk culture markets. It also offers costume rentals and prop services to cater to various photography styles. The entire park features 360-degree immersive performances, with NPCs having unique scripted roles. The storyline unfolds naturally along the tour route through interactive dialogues and fun tasks, creating a deeply immersive experience where "every step reveals a new scene, and every scene tells a story." As countless lights illuminate the new year across this ancient land, it transforms into a flowing epic of light and shadow. This is not just a meeting of craftsmanship and technology, but a profound dialogue between timeless heritage and future aspirations. Let us look forward together to how this luminous feast will brilliantly renew the millennium-old tales through light and shadow, allowing the starry river of China to gently flow within each lantern.

This year's Chengdu Grand Temple Fair at Wuhou Temple integrates tradition and modernity, with grand lantern shows, boutique exhibitions, art performances, antique sacrifices, tours of the gods, creative markets, cultural activities and other projects, combining theme light groups with stage performances and digital light and shadow to create a comprehensive grand temple fair feast.

The "Tianhe Defense Line Project" 2026 First China (Luzhou) Aerospace & Defense Technology Expo will be held from February 7 to March 6 at Luzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center. The exhibition features a 20,000-square-meter immersive display area showcasing over 400 major exhibits across land, sea, air and space domains, including 100 rare physical artifacts. Highlights include national treasure-level scientific specimens such as Chang'e-5 lunar soil samples and Mariana Trench deep-sea water samples. Over ten interactive experiences will be available simultaneously, including the People's Military Industry Public Exhibition, academician science lectures, and youth drone competitions, allowing visitors to experience the awe of national defense achievements up close and witness the magnificent journey of China's distinctive defense technology development.

Dazhou's first Lunar New Year lantern festival in 2026 grandly opens, using the holiday as inspiration and light as its medium to blend traditional folk heritage with modern technological charm, creating an immersive audiovisual feast for local residents and visitors. The exhibition features dozens of uniquely designed lantern sets with diverse themes—showcasing both creative displays highlighting Dazhou's local culture and auspicious designs embodying Lunar New Year wishes, balancing visual appeal with cultural depth. Utilizing modern lighting technology, the lanterns incorporate dynamic projections and interactive sensors, transforming static displays into vibrant spectacles where light and shadow intertwine to create a dreamlike wonderland brimming with futuristic flair. The venue dazzles with red lanterns lining garden paths amid traditional festive decorations, intensifying the holiday spirit. Visitors can enjoy classic activities like lantern viewing and riddle-solving alongside trendy photo opportunities with illuminated installations, collectively crafting a jubilant and lively Lunar New Year atmosphere. This premier festival destination allows every guest to experience the season's joy through this radiant celebration.

The 17th Deyang Lantern Festival returned to Xuanzhu Lake Park from February 13th (the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month) to March 8th (the 20th day of the first lunar month) in 2026. The festival, themed "Three Stars Shining Brightly, Galloping Horses," featured five main sections: "Deyang Charm and Splendor," "Fireworks and Abundance," "Auspicious Autumn Evening," "Ancient Shu Mystery," and "Starry River Fantasy." Visitors could stroll through a replica of the CCTV Autumn Festival Gala's aesthetic scenes, interact with NPCs dressed in ancient Shu costumes, and participate in fun horse-hunting activities. From the grand "Ten Thousand Lanterns Illuminate the City" ceremony on the first day of the Lunar New Year to the lantern extravaganza of the Lantern Festival, there were themed events every day and exciting highlights every week.

The World Horticultural Exposition is an international exposition recognized by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) in the Netherlands. The Expo is scheduled to be held from April 26 to October 28, 2024, with the theme of "Park City, Happy Chengdu". It adheres to the concepts of green and low-carbon, sustainable conservation, sharing and inclusiveness. In the construction of the site, the existing main vegetation will be retained as much as possible, and Chengdu's good plant growth conditions will be fully utilized. The native tree species will be mainly used, and the special plants such as medicinal herbs, fruits and vegetables, roses, crabapples, and crape myrtles will be displayed in combination with the characteristics of the exhibition garden to create a diverse plant community and plant landscape. From theme to planning and design, the Chengdu Expo has always adhered to the three principles of "green and low-carbon, conservation and sustainability, sharing and inclusiveness", which are in line with the construction concept of a park city. A "green, harmonious, and ecological" Expo. Green is the urban background of Chengdu that has been nurtured for thousands of years. We will take "production, ecology, and life" as the core concept, fully integrate the construction and subsequent operation of the Expo into the Jiangxi River area, and fully adopt green, environmentally friendly, recycling, and energy-saving technologies and low-carbon, natural, and ecological materials, emphasizing sustainable retention and lasting use. Integrate the Expo into the city's public space, build more parks and green spaces, and increase people's happiness index and sense of gain. A World Horticultural Exposition with "Chengdu's own characteristics". First, it integrates Chengdu's unique history and regional culture. This includes Chengdu's garden and horticultural culture, people's life culture, folk art, etc. The World Horticultural Exposition held here will be a feast that highlights Chengdu's culture and life attitude; second, it highlights the advantages of the park city in ecological environment construction. Chengdu has been an ecological flower city since ancient times. We will pay attention to people's life experience in the city, actively promote the construction of park cities, and show Residents an ecological scene of harmony between man and nature. Third, the planning layout and operation system of the World Horticultural Exposition highlight innovation. The site focuses on the protection and utilization of water, fields, forests, and residential resources with the characteristics of western Sichuan, so that the construction of the World Horticultural Exposition can achieve low consumption and sustainability. In terms of operation, multiple parties participate, integrate smart concepts, plan to form a diverse tour system, and innovatively use new technologies and new means to achieve resource aggregation and sharing.

"Only Mount Emei", a high-quality project for the integrated development of culture and tourism industries in Sichuan Province and the No. 1 cultural and tourism project in Leshan City, was created and directed by China's most innovative director Wang Chaoge. It is the first work in the "Only" series following the "Impression" series such as "Impression Liu Sanjie" and "Impression Lijiang" and the "See You Again" series such as "See You Again Pingyao" and "See You Again Dunhuang". It is a major innovative breakthrough in China's tourism performances. After creating the performance form of marching performance, Wang Chaoge created a drama city full of countless plots and story lines based on the concept of "Drama Fantasy City". The "Only Mount Emei" drama fantasy city consists of the "Above the Clouds" situational experience theater, the "In the Clouds" garden theater, and the "Under the Clouds" real-life village theater, together presenting the natural and cultural beauty of Mount Emei and the unique charm of Chinese culture. Overlooking the Earth from “above the clouds” A play about time and space, dreams, fate, pursuit, and concern, full of true feelings, allows the audience to move from scene to scene, travel through six natural image spaces, and listen to six different stories and dramas. A unique baptism, a process of physical and mental precipitation, allows the external visual shock to ignite the inner spiritual shock. "In the Clouds" Walking in the misty clouds The 8,000-square-meter dreamy fog forest creates a feeling of "sea of ​​clouds flowing over the roof", and 500,000 tiles are constructed to outline a "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", creating a paradise on earth with green mountains behind and eaves underfoot. There are 30 drama performance spots, and every step is a drama and every place is like a painting. Feeling childhood nostalgia "under the clouds" The realistic scene design, full character creation, and old objects with a strong sense of history depict the "Sichuan Rural Atlas" of the 1980s. A series of warm and touching, ridiculous, or bizarre dramas are being performed in every household...