PAssionArts Festival 2026 wraps up on 26 and 27 September 2026 with four heartland celebrations, from a Mass Lantern Parade at Bukit Gombak to drone soccer at Bukit Merah View Square. If you’d rather mark Mid-Autumn a short bus ride from home than fight a crowd at a big public garden for one lantern photo, this is your weekend plan.
The festival has been running since 1 August. This year the People’s Association (PA) spread it across 79 festival villages, up from 67 last year, organised by 82 Community Arts and Culture Clubs (CACCs) across the island’s five districts. The Nanyang PAssionArts Festival is part of the closing line-up too, with lantern riddles, fairy light lanterns and air-dry clay art. Our September 2026 guide to things to do in Singapore has more if the rest of the month still looks empty.
Drone Soccer Meets Tea Appreciation
The Henderson-Dawson Mid-Autumn Celebration 2026 has the widest spread of the weekend. A lantern procession, tea appreciation and mooncake tasting sit alongside lantern riddles, the old Mid-Autumn game where the riddle is written on the lantern and you work out the answer. Then there’s drone soccer, which puts your grandparents’ Mid-Autumn and your nephew’s version in the same square.
The craft tables go well past colouring sheets, with mass digital art jamming, canvas painting, fan art, and fridge magnet design. On stage, Chinese cultural dance shares the evening with guzheng (the Chinese plucked zither) and wushu (Chinese martial arts) performances. With tea and mooncakes on the same programme, this is the stop for anyone planning to eat their way through the night!
📅 Saturday, 26 September 2026 · ⏰ 6pm to 9pm · 📍 Bukit Merah View Square
Bukit Gombak Goes Full Lantern
Bukit Gombak’s Mass Lantern Parade is the centrepiece of the closing weekend, and it happens at CMPB (Central Manpower Base). Most Singaporean men remember the building from their pre-enlistment medical check-up, so a night of lanterns there is a far happier return visit. The organisers say years of Mid-Autumn celebrations here have been about lanterns, laughter and shared traditions, strengthening the neighbourhood’s kampong (Malay for village) spirit.
The Best Dressed Costume Competition is where things get competitive, with prizes for the most creative, festive, or traditional outfits. Stage performances, art activities and games fill out the rest of the evening, so dig out that cheongsam or rabbit ears before 6pm on Saturday.
📅 Saturday, 26 September 2026 · ⏰ 6pm to 9pm · 📍 CMPB, 91 Hillview Link, Singapore 669723
Joo Chiat Does It in Daylight
PAssionArts Festival @ Joo Chiat is the only afternoon slot of the weekend, and it swaps lanterns for a multi-ethnic arts line-up at St Patrick’s School. Residents can try coaster art, postcard printmaking, batik painting, Chinese calligraphy, and rangoli (Indian floor art made with coloured powder) without leaving one school compound.
The stage is gloriously mixed. The Singapore Pipe Band shares billing with the St Patrick’s School Rock Band and Indian dancers from Global Indian International School (GIIS), with live buskers filling the gaps. Bagpipes and a school rock band on East Coast Road on the same afternoon is about as Singaporean as a line-up gets.
📅 Saturday, 26 September 2026 · ⏰ 3pm to 6pm · 📍 St Patrick’s School, 490 East Coast Road, Singapore 429058
Kebun Baru Makes Mooncakes
Sunday belongs to the Mid-Autumn Festival @ Kebun Baru Bestari, which leans hardest into food. A Mooncake Making Booth anchors the evening, with a Games Booth, lanterns and festive displays, and a festive art installation set up for family photos. Snacks, treats and live performances run all evening.
This is the one stop where the mooncake is something you assemble instead of only eating it. Anyone who has winced at the price of a box in our must-try mooncakes guide will appreciate learning how the thing comes together.
📅 Sunday, 27 September 2026 · ⏰ 5.30pm to 8.30pm · 📍 246A & 246B Ang Mo Kio Street 21, Singapore 561246
Built by the Neighbours
What sets this festival apart from a park light-up is who made the big pieces. Residents design and build the installations at each festival village, while the hands-on art booths are led by professional artists or art groups. Ms Tan Swee Leng, Director of PA’s Arts & Culture Division, said CACCs answered this year’s “Our Neighbourhood Gems” theme “with a slew of art workshops, mural wall paintings, large-scale art installations and calls for residents to be part of dance performances.”
Paya Lebar-Kovan shows how that plays out. At a July workshop with artist Jesse Leong, residents shaped air-dry clay replicas of local landmarks, including Tua Jia Kar Well, Paya Lebar Air Base and 105 Hainanese Market & Food Centre, for a 2m four-tier birthday cake installation.
For 85-year-old resident Ms Petrina Yeo, the workshops are “all about fun and fellowship.” She rounds up her friends whenever one is announced, “and we all turn up together.”
Mr Subramanian Sankarasubramanian, PBM (Public Service Medal), chairperson of the Paya Lebar CACC, said that when residents see their finished work admired by neighbours, “it gives them a sense of ownership over the artwork, and a sense of belonging to our neighbourhood.”
Other neighbourhoods went big too. Bukit Batok East residents spent four artist-guided workshops in July building Community Tower with artist Royston Phang. The result is three mosaic towers, the tallest standing 1.8m, clad in panels carrying more than 10,800 sequin discs.
Sengkang East pressed 33,000 recycled bottle caps into a map of Singapore with artist Xavier Ang, sorting them by colour and placing them one by one. That’s a lot of kopi-bottle caps saved from the bin.
Which One to Pick
With only one evening free, go to Bukit Gombak, because a lantern parade and a costume contest give the whole neighbourhood a reason to show up together. Choose Henderson-Dawson instead if your crew cares more about mooncake tasting and drone soccer than dressing up. Joo Chiat ends at 6pm, so an arts afternoon there can lead into either Saturday evening if you don’t mind arriving a little late. Kebun Baru is the Sunday save for families who want their kids elbow-deep in mooncake dough.
🗓️ Date: Saturday, 26 September and Sunday, 27 September 2026
⏰ Time: 3pm to 6pm (Joo Chiat); 6pm to 9pm (Henderson-Dawson, Bukit Gombak); 5.30pm to 8.30pm (Kebun Baru Bestari)
📍 Location: St Patrick’s School, 490 East Coast Road, Singapore 429058; Bukit Merah View Square; CMPB, 91 Hillview Link, Singapore 669723; 246A & 246B Ang Mo Kio Street 21, Singapore 561246
🎟️ Entry: Some activities may be ticketed; check with the respective CACC before heading down
🏮 Highlights: Mass Lantern Parade, Best Dressed Costume Competition, drone soccer, mooncake making, and lantern riddles
This is the last weekend of a two-month run, and some of this year’s Giant Delight installations, the festival’s island-wide large-scale community art project, will reappear at PAssionArts x Chingay 2027. Check the PAssionArts Facebook and Instagram pages for each neighbourhood’s latest updates, then grab a lantern and go find your own neighbourhood gem before the festival packs up for the year!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of People’s Association PAssionArts.
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