Chatswood Year of the Snake celebrations
Lunar New Year, also called Chinese New Year or Spring Festival, marks the beginning of a new Chinese zodiac cycle based on the Chinese lunar calendar, a 12-year cycle. The Year of the Snake is the sixth animal in the cycle.
Lunar New Year is marked across many Asian countries between late January and mid-February.
Willoughby City Council is celebrating Lunar New Year 2025 with the Chatswood Year of the Snake festival, in recognition of the snake zodiac, which symbolises wisdom and opportunities for personal growth and change.
This year’s festival will delight and enthral the whole family, kicking off on 23 January and running until 16 February in Chatswood. The city centre will come alive with events celebrating luck, prosperity, and good health for the lunar new year.
The festival’s highlight event, celebration day, will take place on 1 February from 10am to 10pm and will feature the best in live entertainment, lion dances, a lantern parade and market stalls along Victoria Avenue with the best Asian food and variety stalls. With something for all the family, this day is not to be missed.
Visitors are invited to discover a ‘snake trail’ and experience the incredible global food offerings on offer in Chatswood.
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday throughout the festival, the community will be able to take up the vibrant array of offerings at the golden market, open until 10pm, featuring unique stallholders selling a diverse range of delicious international foods, gifts and decorations.
Feast on culinary delights at the market stalls
Visitors can also experience the festival’s art exhibition, Infrangible Matter: Tracing the Elements, from 23 January to 23 February, in the Art Space on The Concourse on Victoria Avenue. The exhibition is inspired by the five elements or agents within traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean cultures.
The elements of fire, water, wood, metal and earth inform cosmic cycles, the interior of the body and the natural world.
Artists in the exhibition draw from a variety of cultural roots to offer conceptual and poetic interpretations of the elements and how they can reflect deeper themes. Fire, water, wood, metal and earth become agents to address current reflections on colonisation, the environment, migration, personal ritual and more.
Artists include Min-Woo Bang, Cindy Yuen-Zhe Chen and Frankie Chow.
This year’s festival will be jam-packed with new attractions and events as well as the return of crowd favourites that will transport locals and visitors on a cultural journey of food, arts and entertainment with influences from China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, the Philippines and other destinations.
The quintessential Lunar New Year celebration day will be held on 3 February at The Concourse, Chatswood Mall and down the main street of Victoria Avenue. Chatswood will explode in colour and movement with lion dancers, performers, musical experiences, food stalls, and finish with a Lantern Parade.
CHATSWOOD YEAR OF THE SNAKE FESTIVAL 2025
23 January to 16 February Chatswood CBD
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