The FREE inaugural Birmingham Mid-Autumn Festival sponsored by Circus Casinos and Lebara Mobile will take place on Tuesday 13th September, from 5.30pm to 7.30pm in the Arcadian Centre in Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter.

“Following the recent success of celebrations in Birmingham to mark the Chinese New Year, the Birmingham Chinese Festival Committee has launched a new festival to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most charming and colourful annual events that celebrates, among other things, harvest time with the biggest and brightest moon of the year.

The festival also commemorates a 14th Century uprising against the Mongols. In a cunning plan, the rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to compatriots. Today, during the festival, people eat special sweet cakes known as “Moon Cakes” made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg-yolk and other ingredients.

Along with the cakes, shops sell colourful Chinese paper lanterns in the shapes of animals, and more recently, in the shapes of aeroplanes and space ships.

The programme promises something for everyone, from cultural dancing, mesmerising acrobatics, lion dancing and even a spectacular firework finale to round the celebration off. Birmingham Chinese Festival Committee Chairman, Jeffrey Yap commented, “We are delighted to be able to launch a brand new festival for the people of Birmingham to celebrate a very significant festival in the Chinese calendar and to be able to learn more about Chinese culture. We warmly welcome all communities and look forward to seeing many families on the day.”

Birmingham’s inaugural Mid-Autumn Festival, sponsored by Circus Casinos, is organised by the Birmingham Chinese Festival Committee (BCFC), and is free to the public thanks to the co-operation of our Corporate and Municipal partners. Lebara Mobile, the main sponsor of the Chinese New Year celebrations is also a main sponsor.

The aims of the BCFC are to organise, develop, and maintain the Chinese New Year Festivities in Birmingham to a standard which reflects the high level of interest the wider community in the Midlands have for Chinese culture. The Committee also strives to promote Chinese culture through organising performances at other events, such as Birmingham’s Artsfest.”