Celebrate the Year of the Horse this Sunday at Footscray’s annual East Meets West Lunar New Year Festival.
Hosted by the Footscray Asian Business Association (FABA), the 36th annual festival is one of Australia’s largest and most vibrant Lunar New Year celebrations, with 15,000 people expected to attend across the 10-hour event.
Originally established to celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, East Meets West has since expanded to include many other cultures, as the name suggests.
Along with Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and other Asian cultures, attendees will be able to enjoy food and performances from Africa, the Pacific and many other parts of the world too.
There will be unique markets stalls selling a wide variety of goods, kids will be catered for with a range of fun activities, and as with every Lunar New Year celebration, lion and dragon dances will be a highlight.
The festival will once again be held in Byron Plaza, near the Saigon Welcome Arch in Leeds Street in the Footscray CBD.
A spokesperson for FABA said they hoped East Meets West would help efforts to revive the CBD.
“This is one of the biggest items on the FABA agenda, to bring Footscray back alive economically,” the spokesperson said.
East Meets West Lunar New Year Festival runs from 11am-9pm on 25 January.
