Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival In Hong Kong 2025: Mooncakes, Lanterns And More

Celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival 2025 in Hong Kong with all the family traditions — from sharing mooncakes and crafting colourful lanterns to gathering under the glowing full moon. It’s the perfect time to teach your little ones about the meaning of the Moon Festival through fun, kid-friendly activities and cultural experiences.

The Hong Kong Mid-Autumn Festival is a great holiday to celebrate with the family, whether you’re a born-and-raised 852 kid or a newbie to this bustling city. This traditional festival is all about bringing the family together, eating plenty of mooncakes and encouraging your kids to get involved with at-home activities. We’ve got the lowdown on Moon Festival history and customs so you can enjoy it with the whole gang. Here’s our 2025 Mid-Autumn Festival Guide for families in Hong Kong.

Read More: Sassy Mama’s Guide To Festivities Around The Globe

When Is Hong Kong’s Mid-Autumn Festival 2025?

This year, we’ll be celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival on Tuesday, 7 October 2025, which means the festivities kick off on the evening of Monday, 6 October 2025. Time to dust off those lanterns, grab some mooncakes, and head to the outdoor parks and playgrounds for that magical glow under the full moon!

Read More: The Best Outdoor Playgrounds And Parks In Hong Kong

The History Of The Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most colourful events in Hong Kong, lighting up the city with bright lanterns, light shows and fiery dragon dances.

Usually celebrated as a harvest festival, this long-standing tradition goes back to the Tang dynasty (from around 600 AD). It was also a time for workers living far from home to reunite with their families. Back then, people would gather to offer food and drink to the Moon Goddess, Chang’e, as a way of giving thanks for the year’s harvest. According to legend, Chang’e blesses her worshippers with beauty, so lanterns were lit in her honour (and to make sure she could see them clearly from the sky).

The Mid-Autumn Festival is all about light, so a household really wouldn’t be complete without a fabulous lantern to guide the way. Historically, the lanterns were made from paper and lit with candles, but nowadays they tend to be plastic, battery operated (safe and reusable is always a win, right, Mamas?) and come in every shape and cartoon character you can think of. Be warned — some come with electronic tunes that play non-stop!

Read More: 101 Things To Do In Hong Kong With Kids

The Mooncake Festival In Hong Kong

You either love ’em or leave ’em, but the entire Mid-Autumn Festival revolves around having a sliver (or more) of this seasonal treat. Celebrated as a thanksgiving for the harvest, the main symbol of this season is the full moon represented in a mooncake.

It is said that in the Yuan dynasty, mooncakes were used as a means to pass secret messages between revolutionaries. Centuries on, mooncakes have evolved into all kinds of delicious flavours — including Sassy Mama faves like coffee and pandan. Traditionally, these festive treats are shared with the whole family after a big dinner. Classic versions are filled with rich, velvety lotus seed paste and hide a golden salted egg yolk right in the centre.

Not to fret if you’re not a fan of the traditional mooncake, as there are many different variations to suit the changing palates of Hongkongers (and we’ve rounded up our top picks for you!)

Read More: Sassy Mama’s 10 Best Mooncakes In Hong Kong This Year

Family-Friendly Mid-Autumn Festival Activities In Hong Kong

Throughout Hong Kong, you’ll find lanterns strung about, ready to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. Typically, Hong Kong is never one to shy away from celebrating local customs on a grand scale!

Fire Dragon Dance, Tai Hang

Tai Hang residents are always proud of the Fire Dragon Dance, and if you’ve experienced it, you’ll know why! It’s definitely one to cross off your Hong Kong bucket list if you haven’t seen it yet. This fascinating Mid-Autumn Festival tradition dates back to the 19th century, when residents of Tai Hang (then a small Hakka village) were dealing with catastrophe after catastrophe. From a raging typhoon to an awful plague, followed by an alleged python eating their livestock, the Tai Hang villagers simply couldn’t get a break.

According to legend, when bad luck struck the village, a soothsayer advised the people to perform a fiery dance for three days and three nights during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The villagers built a massive dragon from straw, covering it with burning incense to drive away evil spirits. With the crackle of firecrackers and the pounding of drums, they danced for three nights straight — and, amazingly, the plague disappeared.

Today, this dance has been listed as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage, and it’s definitely worth taking the kids to watch the performance. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, Tai Hang attracts large crowds who flock to the neighbourhood to catch this fiery and smoky spectacle. We’re talking about 300 performers, 7,000 incense sticks and a 67-metre-long dragon that will leave you in a wide-eyed trance!

When: Sunday, 5 to Tuesday, 7 October 2025
Where: Tai Hang, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island (Best vantage point: Wun Sha Street, information map to be released later)
How much: Free Viewing

Read More: Your Family Neighbourhood Guide To Tai Hang

Mid-Autumn Lantern Carnivals In Victoria Park & Tsing Yi

The Mid-Autumn Festival always promises to include spectacular lantern displays, along with stage performances by arts groups, traditional lantern displays, fire dragon dance and folk craft demonstrations from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. Besides the brightly lit lanterns, there are usually game and food stalls, palm reading and other kid-friendly activities — and this year, they’re even featuring elements such as traditional lantern making! Don’t forget your cameras and make sure to buy your little ones their own Mid-Autumn lanterns at the stalls (which come in all shapes and sizes, including their favourite Disney character!) to add to the fun.

Mid-Autumn Lantern Carnival

When: Tuesday, 30 September – Tuesday, 7 October 2025
Where: Victoria Park, Causeway Bay

Read More: Mid-Autumn Crafts And Activities To Do With Your Kids

Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Displays

Be prepared for a thematic display of lanterns that will make your September and October a magical one with the littlest members of your family. Trust us, your kids won’t be the only ones ooh-ing and ahh-ing! Keep your eye out as you pass through the city’s shopping malls (our pick is Lee Tung Avenue in Wan Chai) for traditional and colourful Chinese lanterns.

This year, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre will light up with a spectacular month-long lantern display, while the Piazza will come alive with cultural performances and events you won’t want to miss.

Mid-Autumn Lantern Display

When: Thursday, 25 September – Saturday, 19 October 2025
Where: Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza, Tsim Sha Tsui

Other Ways To Celebrate The Mid-Autumn Festival In Hong Kong

While we wait for further announcements on the Mid-Autumn festivities this year, we’ve put together some easy crafts so you can celebrate by making your own lanterns, drums, dragons and even mooncakes. And here’s also a list of alternate (but equally lively and fun) ways to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival:

• Head to one of the many family-friendly beaches in Hong Kong, ready with your lanterns (and possibly BBQ equipment!). We spot families decorating tents by the beach every year, and it’s a ton of fun!
• Take on a night hike and see the city all lit up from above (suitable for older kids and experienced families)
• Dine at a rooftop bar and catch the full moon
• Venture out to Tai O Fishing Village for a lantern extravaganza where the whole village comes to life
• Book your tables at your favourite Chinese restaurants for dim sum and poon choi!
• Pack a picnic, bring your lanterns, and head to a nearby park. Be sure to arrive a little early if you want a good spot — families will be out in full force! You could even do some baking and cooking with the kids before you head out!
• Pop on ‘Over The Moon’ on Netflix for the kids — it beautifully shares the legend of Chang’e while gently weaving in themes of love, loss, family, and friendship, all in a way that’s easy for little ones to enjoy and understand.

Read More: Tai O Fishing Village – Family Restaurants, Hikes And More 

Editor’s Note: “Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival In Hong Kong 2025 – Mooncakes, Lanterns And More” was most recently updated in September 2025 by Sassy Mama. Thanks to Danielle Roberts for her contribution.