Lunar New Year 2024 | Chinese Year of the Dragon
Lunar New Year at Warwick: Chinese Year of the Dragon
Friday 9th Feb 2024
Many people around the world celebrate the start of the New Year in Spring. Join us for a Lunar New Year festival, in an afternoon of snacks, craft and performance incorporating several regional traditions. The festival is known by many names, including the Chinese Spring Festival, Korean Seollal, Vietnamese Tet and Tibetan Losar.
Live Screening of the Chinese New Year Gala
12pm - 4pm
Warwick Arts Centre
Join us to watch the CCTV New Year's Gala live from China, featuring music, dance, comedy and drama performances.
Craft Activities
2pm - 4.30pm
Warwick Arts Centre
Enjoy a variety of craft activities, including lantern decorating, origami hanboks and blossoms, kite making, lucky knots and more!
Snacks
2pm - 4.30pm
Warwick Arts Centre
Indulge in a range of authentic snacks, including dumplings, yakgwa cookies, red watermelon and more!
Games & Calligraphy
2pm - 5pm
Warwick Arts Centre
Play a variety of board games including Yunnori, Mahjong, and Gobang. You'll also be able to spread new year wishes with calligraphy and take your painted creations home with you.
Wishing Tree
3pm - 5pm
Senate Lawn
Write your wish on a piece of paper, tie it to a tangerine and throw it into the tree - if it hangs, the wish will come true. If not, maybe you were a little too greedy...
Lucky Envelope / Purse
2pm - 4.30pm
Warwick Arts Centre
China, Korea and Vietnam all have their variations on this tradition! Collect your lucky red envelope or bokjumeoni (silk purse), filled with a gold chocolate coin for luck!
Firecrackers and Lion Dance
5pm - 6pm
Oculus Field & Senate Lawn (Lion Dance will take place inside Copper Rooms if wet)
We'll be finishing the celebrations off with a BANG! You won't forget this one in a hurry, come along and marvel at our incredible firecrackers and follow along with the lion dance performance. If you only join us for one aspect of this event, make it this one!
If you're a student planning to attend, book your free place via MyAdvantage by clicking the button below! If you're planning to attend and are not staff or student at the University of Warwick, that's no problem! You won't be able to book, but can just turn up and enjoy.
Experience Lunar New Year in Virtual Reality!
4pm - 5pm
FAB Agora
The VR Club invite you to come and experience Lunar New Year in the VR universe through their Meta Quest Pro Headsets. NO Registration, just drop in and have a go!
What can I expect from the event?
We're still finalising details, but you can find photos from last year's Lunar New Year festival hereLink opens in a new window.
I'm running my own event
Fantastic! If you'd like your event to appear on the Warwick Presents calendar, and on this page, please submit your content through our formLink opens in a new window.
Why are we calling it Lunar New Year?
Within our university community, we have students, staff members and alumni from a wide range of backgrounds, many of whom also celebrate this festival in different ways and often with different names including Spring Festival, Seollal, Tet and Losar.
Ahead of organising the celebrations, we have consulted a wide range of cultural societies around the naming convention for this festival including several of the Chinese societies, and many students favour the inclusivity of the term ‘Lunar New Year’ to reflect the wide variety of backgrounds and traditions encompassed in this celebration. Therefore, in an attempt to increase inclusivity, the University is referring to this festival as the ‘Lunar New Year’, while also referencing the ‘Chinese’ year of the dragon, to acknowledge the broad consensus around the Chinese origins of the zodiac animals.
It is also clearly understood that individual societies, students, staff members and our alumni community will use the naming convention that feels most authentic to them. We hope this helps to explain why we reference the Lunar New Year alongside the Chinese Year of the Dragon within our University communications.
I have ideas for the event
That’s great! We want to make sure this event is inclusive for all members of our community. We primarily do our consultation work with relevant cultural societies, so a good way to get feedback to us is by engaging with them.
However, if you’d like to share your ideas with us directly, you can also complete the form below. We can't promise that we'll be able to respond to every suggestion, but we will review them as part of our planning.