Mid-Autumn Festival Singapore 2026: Make It, Adopt It, or Eat It

Updated 23 September 2026. This guide is kept current for 2026; earlier editions are archived as dated posts.

Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Friday, 25 September this year, which leaves one week to make something of it: a mall holding 50 one-of-a-kind rabbits, a free heritage festival in the Chinese Garden, a Basque burnt cheesecake wearing a snow skin shell, and three heartland nights still to come. This guide sets out what each one costs, how long it takes, and who it suits. It’s written for families with a weekend to fill, younger readers who want more from the festival than a gift box, and anyone working out how much to spend.

Adopt One of Paragon’s 50 Rabbits

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Paragon on Orchard Road has 50 rabbit sculptures on show for Mid-Autumn Lumière, its festival programme running from 2 to 27 September 2026, and no two of them look alike. Design students from Raffles Design Institute (RDI) made them together with artists from ART:DIS (Arts and Disability Singapore), and the project raises awareness and money for children and youths with disabilities.

One rabbit comes from award-winning Singaporean artist Lau Poo Seng, who goes by Raymond and is known for his abstract-impressionist paintings of the city. His rabbit is covered in colourful dots and patterns with familiar buildings worked in, so it’s a small, cheerful Singapore skyline for your shelf.

Under Paragon’s Adopt-a-rabbit scheme, any of the 50 can go home with you for S$800, and every dollar goes to ART:DIS. CapitaLand Hope Foundation then matches the money raised dollar for dollar, up to S$40,000. Do the sums and the design is obvious: 50 rabbits at S$800 each comes to exactly S$40,000, so if every sculpture finds a home, the match doubles the total and ART:DIS receives S$80,000!

Being seen matters here as much as the money does. “There is no lack of talent among artists with disabilities; what is often lacking is access to opportunities for that talent to be seen,” said Angela Tan, executive director of ART:DIS, the charity that runs arts training and livelihoods for artists with disabilities. An Orchard Road mall puts that work in front of a steady stream of shoppers every day of the month.

Looking at the rabbits costs nothing. Around the sculptures, Mid-Autumn Lumière runs live instrumental performances, candle-customisation workshops, family activities and festive gifting, mooncakes included, through to the end of the month.

Give yourself 30 minutes to walk the display, or longer if you’re choosing a rabbit to take home. This suits anyone who wants their festive spending to do some good, and there’s a practical argument for it too: a box of mooncakes will be gone by October, while the rabbit stays on the shelf.

📅 2 to 27 Sep · 📍 Paragon, 290 Orchard Road · 💰 Free to browse, S$800 to adopt · 🎟 Adoption details on Paragon’s Mid-Autumn Lumière page

3 Heartland Nights Still to Come

The heartlands had their big weekend on 19 and 20 September, when PAssionArts Festival 2026 ran Mid-Autumn celebrations across 18 neighbourhoods, from Eunos and Kaki Bukit to Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng and Toa Payoh Central. Kampong Glam turned Zhongshan Park into a carnival-themed art village on the Saturday, and as night fell residents carried their lanterns on a walk around the park, finishing at Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall under its own Mid-Autumn decorations.

Admiralty’s contribution the following evening was the one to beat. Residents unveiled “Big Catch” (钓大鱼), a fish lantern roughly 2.8m long and 2.2m high, woven by hand from bamboo and rattan and lit from inside at Vista Park. About 100 residents aged 2 to 85 painted 200 translucent discs as its scales, working with community artists Casey Chen and Esther Ng, and the fish nods to Admiralty’s past as a fishing village.

Readers who caught our interview with Lynette Quek and Esther Quek on the festival’s 2024 Culinary Symphony will recognise the format: the art is designed and built by residents themselves, under this year’s theme, Our Neighbourhood Gems. Three celebrations are still ahead, and they land on the festival’s closing weekend.

• Bukit Gombak (26 September, 6pm to 9pm): the estate’s Mid-Autumn night has run for years, and this edition adds a Mass Lantern Parade, stage performances, art activities and games at CMPB (Central Manpower Base), 91 Hillview Link. Tickets are S$6 per person on onePA, the People’s Association’s booking site, and there’s a Best Dressed Costume Competition, so the effort you put into the outfit is worth prizes.
• Henderson-Dawson (26 September, 6pm to 9pm): the one for people who want to make something big together, at Bukit Merah View, with mass art activities including digital art jamming and canvas painting, interactive booths, and performances by community bands and interest groups.
• Kebun Baru Bestari (27 September, 5.30pm to 8.30pm): the gentler evening, at Block 246A Ang Mo Kio, with a mooncake-making booth, a games booth, lantern displays and live performances. A festive art installation gives families somewhere to take the group photo.

Each estate handles its own sign-ups, so check onePA or the community club’s Facebook page before heading down. All three run about three hours, though 90 minutes is plenty with small children, and they’re built for residents and neighbours rather than visitors. Half the fun is spotting the auntie (a friendly local term for an older woman) from the next block at the craft table.

📅 26 and 27 Sep · 📍 CMPB Hillview Link, Bukit Merah View, and Block 246A Ang Mo Kio · 💰 S$6 at Bukit Gombak · 🎟 onePA or each CC’s Facebook page

Wan Qing at the Chinese Garden

If you want your lantern-making with pagodas and a lake behind it, head west. Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall has brought its Wan Qing Mid-Autumn Festival to the Chinese Garden at Jurong Lake Gardens until 27 September 2026, staged with the National Parks Board (NParks) as part of Lights by the Lake 2026, and every activity is free.

The hall is the Balestier villa that Sun Yat Sen used as his Southeast Asian base, and the festival takes its name from the villa’s old name, Wan Qing Yuan. It’s run by a National Heritage Board museum, so the programme leans towards storytelling and craft rather than carnival games, which makes a pleasant change in a month full of inflatables. Regulars may remember its spring counterpart, the Wan Qing Festival of Spring, from our January 2024 guide.

The new draw is Xiao Qing’s Special Delivery, a self-guided stamp rally that has you collecting exclusive stamps at landmarks around the garden. It takes its cue from the Legend of Madame White Snake, the Chinese folk tale of a snake spirit who falls in love with a human, and Xiao Qing is her loyal green-snake companion.

The rally runs until 4 October, and the Chinese Garden itself opens 5.30am to 12am, so the stamps fit neatly into a morning walk before you return in the evening for the keepsake. That keepsake is handed out at the Bonsai Garden during the drop-in evenings, and three are left: 25, 26 and 27 September, from 6.30pm to 9.30pm.

Storytellers close the festival with Tales of Mid-Autumn Festival in English on 27 September, with sessions at 6.45pm and 7.30pm. If your kids have been hearing about the moon goddess all month without getting the full story, this is where they finally get it.

The same three evenings bring lantern making, hanfu (traditional Han Chinese clothing) dress-up and photos, multi-layered stamp printing, and heritage discovery game stations, all of them drop-in and none of them charging a cent. Come early enough for daylight photos in the garden and stay for the light-up.

Two travelling exhibitions round out the festival and run to 4 October alongside the stamp rally. A Taste of Reunion works through the food traditions of the festival, mooncakes included, while Wan Qing Yuan: A Journey Through History and Heritage brings the villa’s own story and architecture out to the lake in panels and models.

Chinese Garden MRT station sits right beside the garden, and JEM in Jurong East is one stop away if you want dessert afterwards. Allow 90 minutes for the stamps and the evening booths. It suits families with primary schoolers, hanfu fans after a new set of photos, and anyone who’d rather not spend a cent this Mid-Autumn.

📅 25 to 27 Sep; stamp rally until 4 Oct · 📍 Chinese Garden, Jurong Lake Gardens, Chinese Garden MRT · 💰 Free · 🎟 No booking needed

Sanrio Moonlit Garden at VivoCity

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Some evenings you only want to wander, and Sanrio Characters Moonlit Garden costs nothing to walk through. It’s on Sky Park, Level 3 of VivoCity, next to HarbourFront station, staged as part of the mall’s 20th anniversary year, and the garden is open until 27 September 2026, two days after Mid-Autumn itself.

The space is split into six themed areas built around Hello Kitty, My Melody, Cinnamoroll, Kuromi, Pompompurin and Hangyodon, with lanterns, water gardens and fairy lights throughout. The family and lifestyle site Everyday People picks out Hello Kitty’s lantern walk and a towering Hangyodon as the highlights, while The Smart Local points to seven more character installations scattered around the rest of the mall, Pochacco included, so the kids get a treasure hunt out of it too.

Entry is free and the garden opens 10am to 10pm daily. Go after 6pm, when the lights come on and the whole park changes character. The carnival games, train rides and capsule toy machines all cost extra, so settle on a budget before a small child spots the toy capsules.

An hour covers the garden and the character hunt. Young children and Sanrio fans will get the most from it, along with anyone in need of a new phone wallpaper.

📅 Until 27 Sep, 10am to 10pm daily · 📍 Sky Park, Level 3, VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk · 💰 Free entry, games and rides extra

Queic’s Snow Skin Basque Cheesecake

By your third box of lotus paste mooncakes, a new flavour starts to sound appealing. Queic by Olivia has three of them: a limited-edition trio of snow skin cheesecakes in pistachio, salted egg and yuzu lemon, each a Basque burnt cheesecake wrapped in a snow skin shell. The brand began at Olivia Restaurant & Lounge, a Spanish restaurant whose homemade cheesecake built a cult following, and the team later spun it off into shops that sell nothing but cheesecake.

Mooncakes are new ground for Queic, whose past specials have stuck to cheesecake flavours like a Cheddar Basque Burnt Cheesecake made with British aged cheddar and Red Leicester. The pairing makes sense once you think about the fridge: snow skin is the soft, unbaked mooncake casing that has to stay chilled, and cheesecake lives there anyway. Queic makes its chewy, glutinous-rice skin in-house, and staff wrap each cheesecake by hand.

The run is limited and sold while stocks last, so don’t leave it to the week of the festival. Queic has shops at JEM (#01-33, 50 Jurong Gateway Road), Scotts Square, Jewel Changi Airport and Kreta Ayer Road near Chinatown. For a sense of the brand’s usual pricing, Eatbook reported in July 2026 that its limited-edition ube (Filipino purple yam) cheesecakes went for S$55++ for a 6-inch cake and S$12 a slice, where the ++ means service charge and GST (Goods and Services Tax) are added on top.

A takeaway stop takes about 15 minutes. It’s the gift for the friend who always leaves the lotus paste on the plate.

📍 JEM, Scotts Square, Jewel Changi Airport, and Kreta Ayer Road · 🎟 Limited edition, while stocks last

If You Only Do One

Everything left runs out on the same day, so the weekend of 26 and 27 September decides most of it. Bukit Gombak’s lantern parade and Henderson-Dawson’s art jam both take the Saturday, Kebun Baru Bestari takes the Sunday, and the Bonsai Garden drop-ins at the Chinese Garden cover the 25th, 26th and 27th, while Paragon’s rabbits and the Sanrio garden close on the 27th. For a day out that costs nothing, it’s the Chinese Garden or the Sanrio garden at VivoCity, and families in the west can pair the stamp rally with a one-stop hop to JEM for Queic’s snow skin cheesecakes. If there’s festive money set aside, the choice is between another box of mooncakes and a Paragon rabbit, where the matching pledge makes every dollar count twice.

Pick the Chinese Garden on Sunday, 27 September. The English storytelling sessions, the lantern making, the hanfu photos and the stamp keepsake all land on that one free evening, under real lanterns beside the lake, and it’s the last night the festival runs. If you live near Hillview or Bukit Merah, go to your own estate’s celebration the evening before instead, because a lantern walk with your own neighbours beats one with strangers every time.

Check onePA or your community club’s Facebook page for your estate’s celebration, get the adoption details from Paragon’s Mid-Autumn Lumière page before the rabbits go, and keep 27 September free for the Chinese Garden. For everything else on this month, from K-pop to free exhibitions, our guide to Things to Do in Singapore This September 2026 has the rest. Grab a lantern and go find the moon!

Visuals courtesy of Paragon, People’s Association PAssionArts, Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, and Queic by Olivia.

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