Kuching Festival

Kuching hosted an annual carnival known as the Sarawak Festival. During the occasion, there were colourful lantern processions with giant butterflies, school badges, grasshoppers and dragons of traditional Chinese designs. These were accompanied by a parade of colourfully-decorated and brightly-lit floats as well as inter-secondary school drama competitions making this a truly art-orientated event. Sadly, the period of emergency which followed, saw the death of the Sarawak Festival and killed off any enthusiasm to reenact the event after Sarawak joined Malaysia in 1963.

The idea of the Kuching Festival was first suggested in November, 1985 with the intention of reviving a similar festival, which was originally organized a couple years, prior to the formation of Malaysia, but which had subsequently been abandoned. The earlier festival was called "The Sarawak Festival" and aimed at promoting the development of arts. The Kuching Festival materialised the following year, and has been held annually eversince.