Weifang International Kite Festival

The Weifang International Kite Festival has celebrated its 22th birthday in the renowned "Kite Town" , Weifang in east China's Shandong Province, April 21, 2005. Thousands of participants are attracted from home and abroad in the two-day festivities, competing for the title of "Kite King".  There are over ten thousand kinds of kites at the event each year with some in the shape of centipedes, butterflies, and cartoon characters etc.

The night before the festival started, there was an opening ceremony that would equal most any Olympics opening ceremonies! The venue was a huge soccer stadium that seats about 80,000 people, and it was filled, including about 40,000 plastic chairs in the stadium floor! The kiters from the 40 different countries were each escorted across the stage in front of the crowd, and each escort carried a large sign showing the kite flier's home country. Chinese television (CCTV) is government controlled, and they were there to cover the entire opening and closing ceremonies events. During the opening ceremony and awards ceremony at the stadium, there was a huge show on stage that consisted of 10,000 dancers, acrobats, and drummers, also some of China's most popular singers were there to perform.

During the 2-3 days of actual kite flying competitions, all of the invited kite fliers from from around the world were transported from our hotel, and driven to the designated kite flying field.  

There are kites of all shapes and sizes, traditional kites, modern kites, big or small from different region. The unlimited imagination creates magically things.  

During the closing ceremony and awards, the coordinators ended it with an hour long fireworks display that was all choreographed to music from Star Wars, the motion picture.

A museum dedicated to kites and the relative culture has been set up here.