Tomorrow on Jan. 30th, a Lunar New Year festival will be held in the SLC Great Hall Student Lounge from 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM. The event is expecting an attendance of 600 – 800 people and was organized by the UW Vietnamese Student Association, Chinese Student Association and Filipino Student Association. The event will also host performances from the Chinese Martial Arts club, Haebeat dance crew, E:RA dance crew, iWave dance crew, KOrigins dance crew, and lion dancers from the local Vien Quang Buddhist Association.
Students will be able to participate in a variety of cultural activities hosted by different student associations. The Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) will offer traditional games like Bầu cua cá cọp (Fish Crab Prawn), Rice Hat Painting with washable acrylics, a Lunar New Year Wishing Wall, a Pho Eating Contest, Red Pocket Sticky Hands Grab, and Fortune Sticks. The Filipino Student Association (FSA) will engage students with Filipino Cup Pong Trivia, while the Chinese Student Association (CSA) will host Lantern Decorating and a Red Pocket Giveaway.
This year’s Lunar New Year celebration saw significant expansion, thanks to a combination of monetary sponsorships, food donations, in-kind contributions, and student grants. Organizers began reaching out to potential sponsors as early as November 2024 through cold emailing, direct outreach, and existing partnerships. Local businesses such as iPho Vietnamese Cuisine and Ha Noi Eatery provided financial support, while Chicken Plus, La La Bakeshop, Nongshim, and BBQ Chicken contributed food donations and discounts. Additional in-kind sponsorships from Domino’s, GC Burger, Uniclaw, Pocky, and Princess Cinemas helped supply essential resources for the event. A key boost came from the Student Life Endowment Fund (SLEF), which enabled organizers to scale up programming, enhance performances, and create a more immersive experience for attendees. This year’s festival features an expanded night market, offering traditional foods at student-friendly prices ranging from $1–$3, further enriching the cultural celebration.
Planning for the event began in October, led by a small core team from UWVSA who oversaw the event from start to finish. By November, organizers had partnered with WUSA and initiated sponsor and vendor outreach to secure funding and event collaborators. In January, a 19-person senior team took on key leadership roles, followed by the onboarding of the UWVSA general executive team. Altogether, 54 UWVSA members have been working behind the scenes to bring this large-scale cultural celebration to life.
Imprint reached out to VSA to allow them to share their hopes for the event, here were their comments:
“Hosting an event of this scale once felt like a distant goal. We took a big leap in 2024 by running our first-ever Lunar New Year Festival, which at the time featured just one food vendor, one sponsor, a pho contest, and Lion Dancers. This year,…we now have 11 different foods from VSA alone, and 11 sponsors, including major Asian brands like Nongshim and Pocky, as well as proud local Vietnamese businesses.
We hope students will enjoy the performances, affordable eats, generous prizes, and giveaways, and most importantly, create lasting memories at this celebration. We’re aiming for a smooth and successful event, with hopes of making it even bigger and better next year—and hopefully an annual tradition. Looking ahead, we’d love to bring more cultural clubs into future events, fostering an even more inclusive and vibrant celebration of the Lunar New Year on campus.”
