Where to celebrate Moon Festival 2025 in Sydney

For more than 20 years, the Western Sydney suburb of Cabramatta has been a source of boundless energy, life and laughter in early October. That’s for the Cabarramatta Moon Festival, one of the most colourful, delicious and vigorous celebrations in the city all year.

The communal-minded lunar festival has become such a hotly anticipated event in Western Sydney’s wide and diverse social calendar that other Moon Festival events have been growing immensely over recent years. If you want to stick closer to the CBD, you’ve got a huge celebration at Darling Square, and an exciting lantern parade up at Sydney Observatory.

Wherever you choose to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, know that you’ll be met with some of the most delicious Asian street food, exciting lion dances, and the incredibly strong sense of community these celebrations are known for.

What is the Moon Festival?

Also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Moon Festival celebrates a legacy that has persisted for 3,000 years, making it one of the oldest celebrations of its kind today. Originating in ancient China, the main purpose of the festival is to give thanks to the autumn harvest, pray for good fortune, and celebrate family reunions with auspicious symbols like the full moon and round mooncakes.

Where can I celebrate the Moon Festival in Sydney?

1. Cabramatta Moon Festival

More than 90,000 locals head to the award-winning Cabaramatta Moon Festival each year, building up an unmatched atmosphere with people zipping between some of Sydney’s best food stalls. At the same time, they catch nimble lion dances, live cultural performances and music entertainment across two stages.

Kids scramble over carnival rides, everyone comes together with colourful plates of international cuisines enjoyed under the night’s sky, and it all ends in a blockbuster fireworks display. If you’re looking for life in Sydney at the end of September, you’ll find it in abundance at this nine-hour celebration, which kicks off at 11am and runs until 8pm.

For the first time, Cabramatta will host the inaugural National Lion Dance Competition on both Saturday and Sunday that weekend. The Moon Festival itself is scheduled for Sunday, so this is a great chance to catch some lion dancing the day before, if you don’t want to deal with the throngs of people.

Where: Cabramatta Town Centre and surrounding streets
When: Sunday, September 28 from 11am
Price: Free

fairfieldcity.nsw.gov.au

2. Darling Square Moon Festival

The Darling Square Moon Festival has been steadily growing over the past few years, framed by the square precinct with a celebration of local businesses and special culinary creations. Across two weeks, starting from September 27, the Darling Square Moon Festival lights up with a series of glowing lantern installations with lion dancing, live entertainment, family fun and specials from all the precinct’s many shopfronts.

Head along to XOPP by Golden Century and you’ll find a modern mooncake collection with fillings like salted egg custard and sweet red bean. 15chenchi will be doing up a salted egg mochi moon cheesecake. And Lilong by Taste of Shanghai presents an exclusive series of house-made puff pastry mooncakes with fillings like ham and dried shrimp.

But that’s from it. Messina has, of course, created the “Over The Moon” gelato of red dates, caramel, lava custard and mooncake crumbs.

With free live music every Friday and Saturday (6pm – 9pm) during the two-week run, in addition to mooncake clay-making workshops, scavenger hunts and more, it’s looking like the Darling Square Moon Festival has its sights set on becoming one of the biggest cultural festivals of its kind in spring.

Where: Darling Square
When: September 27 – October 12, 2025
Price: Free to enter

darlingharbour.com

3. Moon Festival at Sydney Conservatory

Although the Moon Festival at Sydney Conservatory doesn’t take up an entire day or stretch across two weeks, it’s easily one of the most visually stunning in Sydney each year. To close out the wider celebrations across the city, you can head up to the tallest point of Sydney Harbour to find a lantern parade dancing around the Sydney icon.

Lanterns by Truc Truong will illuminate the area while the Qing Fong Dragon and Lion Dance Team dazzle with gravity-defying lion dances. You’ll also be able to catch live music by Small FRY and a food pop-up from Mumma Le’s Vietnamese Kitchen.

You can even take part in the lantern parade yourself. Throughout the week, Truc Truong will be leading a lantern-making workshop at the Observatory. Head along to design your own lantern and take part in the celebration on October 2.

Where: Sydney Observatory
When: October 2, 2025
Price: Free

powerhouse.com.au