Sunshine Lantern Festival

The Sunshine Lantern Festival is a free community event that takes place in the busy Sunshine shopping precinct along Hampshire Road, Sunshine. It is our 10-year anniversary and we will be celebrating with a huge day of family fun, live entertainment, rides, street performers, animals, music, dancing, food of many nations, magical Lion and Dragon Dancing, a Lantern Parade to celebrate the full moon and ending with spectacular fireworks.

Last year nearly 55,000 people came to enjoy the vibrant multicultural festivities. The Sunshine Lantern Festival is a popular traditional event celebrated in Vietnam and many other South-East Asian communities and here in Sunshine it brings our culturally diverse community together in a safe and fun environment. It is the largest Lantern Festival in Victoria.

This year the bustling Hampshire Road, between Devonshire Road and Foundry Road will be closed to all traffic and will come alive with roving street performers, live entertainment, children’s rides, jumping castles, pony rides, street food, face-painting, circus activities, sporting fun, lantern making and more. Look out for the Water Drops stiltwalkers, The Great Gizmo, The Luna Moonies and TV personality Chris Humfrey with a Wild Action kids stage show with Australian native animals; kids can actually touch. There will be cultural kids activities including Asian origami, Vietnamese lantern making and Aboriginal craft. A large performance stage and seating area will burst with multicultural live entertainment such as Aboriginal artist Mick Tambo who will give us a unique Indigenous experience, One Spirt Africa with a drumming and dance performance to the Vietnamese cultural Legend of the Moon performance featuring International Vietnamese Artist - Y Thanh.

Later in the day a vibrant and energetic Lion and Dragon dance complete with long string fireworks will take place along the Hampshire Road shopfronts leading a parade of children and their following families. The parade will be filled with light from 4,000 free battery powered animal shaped lanterns ending with an exciting display of Fireworks.