A Mid-Autumn Festival Gala Transforms Huainan from “Being Noticed” to “Unforgettable”

The 2026 CMG Mid-Autumn Festival Gala was successfully held in Huainan, attracting over 2 billion global audiences. The main topic of the gala garnered over 10 billion views on Weibo, and the event generated more than 1,070 top trending topics on the internet.The gala has ended, but the moonlight lingers. Huainan has taken the gala as an opportunity to turn the city from a fleeting viral sensation that was merely “noticed” into “unforgettable Huainan” — a place that lingers long in visitors’ hearts. Huainan has repurposed the gala’s main stage as a “urban living room” for residents and tourists where intangible cultural heritage performances such as Flower Drum Lantern, Taige and Zhouge (a kind of folk performance), and Shouzhou Gong and Drum are performed in rotation. The gala’s re-enactment shows are captivating, the intangible cultural heritage-inspired market is bustling with visitors, and the full-moon-like giant screen and “Xuan-paper-like” stage have become popular photo spots.

Main venue of the Mid-Autumn Festival Gala: The urban living room is bustling with visitors

Riding on the gala’s momentum, cultural tourism landmarks such as Shouzhou Ancient City, Bagong Mountain, and Wuwangdun Tomb, together with the “moonlit sky nearby Huaihe River” cultural IP, made a concentrated debut on the global stage, achieving a historic leap in Huainan’s visibility. During the holiday period, Huainan received over 4.3 million trips, a year-on-year increase of over one quarter; comprehensive tourism revenue exceeded 2.6 billion yuan, up more than 30% year-on-year. The gala’s main stage and other check-in spots received over 800,000 visits.

From “being noticed” to “being experienceable” and then to “unforgettable”, Huainan is transforming the gala’s momentum into lasting momentum for urban development.