Sydney’s annual Chinese New Year Festival will celebrate the Year of the Dog from 16 February to 4 March 2018.

As the biggest festival of the Lunar New Year outside Asia, the event will celebrate Korean, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese cultures with 80 family-friendly events. 
“The festival is a celebration of our city’s diversity, uniting people from all cultures to share the beginning of each New Year, which brings with it the opportunity to start afresh and leave behind regrets from the previous year,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.
“Last year’s festival attracted around 1.4 million people to our city and harbour foreshore, creating a fantastic atmosphere and providing a major boost to the local economy,” she added. 

Chinatown celebrations from 16-18 and 23-25 February and 2-4 March will involve lion dance performances with traditional Chinese crackers, with the Friday night Chinatown markets on Little Hay Street offering everything from yum cha and teppanyaki to takoyaki and green-tea flavoured desserts.

Also, Lunar Lanterns community performances will be held from Friday to Sunday from 16-18 and 23-25 February. Performances will include celebration of cultures, community and friendship featuring more than 200 performers from local Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Indonesian community groups.

Moreover, gigantic lanterns representing 12 Chinese zodiac signs will be exhibited in the foreshore from the Sydney Opera House, around Circular Quay to the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Year of the Dog lanterns will be located at Sydney Opera House and Dixon Street Mall in Chinatown.

Furthermore, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT will host an audio tour which will take vision-impaired visitors on a guided tour of the Lunar Lanterns exhibition around the foreshore.