On January 1, 2026, the 32nd Mutianyu Great Wall New Year's Day Sunrise Viewing Event, themed "Pursuing the First Light · Steed-Led Grand Endeavors", was successfully held. Nearly a thousand tourists climbed the Great Wall to greet the first light of the new year on site, while the event shared the morning glow with global audiences through live broadcast.
As the core of the activity, the New Year's Day sunrise viewing continues its classic IP to promote Great Wall culture. The on-site events were brilliant and diverse: red songs and drum performances kicked off the event, followed by intangible cultural heritage (ICH) dragon and lion dances, robot dances, Huangmei Opera, and other shows in turn. The God of Wealth delivering blessings, heart-warming supply of ginger and jujube tea, and a specially set-up prayer area filled the venue with a festive atmosphere. Mutianyu Great Wall teamed up with Dragon TV for a joint live broadcast, allowing tourists to appreciate the magnificent sunrise scenes in regions with different latitudes and longitudes.
The grand finale of the ICH dragon and lion dances pushed the atmosphere to a climax – in 2025, the disabled performance team from Wuxi, Jiangsu Province touched countless audiences; this year, they returned to the Great Wall with even more passionate love, showcasing the dynamic postures of dragons soaring and lions leaping through vivid performances. Their weaving and circling fully demonstrated the vigorous vitality of traditional culture, winning bursts of applause. Subsequently, tourists climbed the Great Wall along with the dragon and lion dance teams. At around 7:35, the Khoomei performance from Siziwang Banner kicked off simultaneously with the sunrise, marking an encounter between an ancient art and a natural wonder.
After the sunrise viewing, the 2026 "Celebrate the New Year in Huairou" Winter Cultural and Tourism Promotion Conference, hosted by the Bureau of Culture and Tourism of Huairou District, kicked off amid the magnificent blend of sonorous drumbeats and the Great Wall sunrise. With ice and snow as the medium and the flavor of the New Year as the soul, the conference adopted an innovative model of government-enterprise collaboration, regional coordination, and online-offline integration. It grandly launched a series of winter cultural and tourism products, high-quality characteristic routes, and beneficial policies for the public, fully unlocking new winter cultural and tourism experiences in Huairou and sincerely inviting friends from all over the world to attend the ice and snow gathering and share the New Year feast.
A specially set-up New Year-themed market at the event gathered folk customs, cultural and creative products, and ICH handcrafted works. Renowned photographer Shi Hongwei also attended the event in person, using his camera to capture precious moments of tourists with the Great Wall and the New Year atmosphere, allowing visitors to experience a strong New Year flavor while shopping, eating, and enjoying the activities.
In the new year, Mutianyu Great Wall Scenic Area will also stride forward with great momentum and stand at the forefront of innovation. It will continuously improve service quality, deeply integrate diverse resources, and create richer, higher-quality, and more distinctive cultural and tourism experiences for tourists.
In the new year, may every friend thrive like the morning sun, have a bright future, and jointly march towards a brand-new future.
