It begins on the 16th day of the tenth month on the Chinese lunar calendar and lasts for seven days and seven nights. The festival includes the Repay Panwang’s Wish and Panwang Festival singing and dancing performances. It is a traditional festival dedicated to ancestral worship, featuring distinctive Yao singing and dancing.

 

The main ceremony of the Repay Panwang’s Wish is held in the Panwang Temple in Zixing City. The singing and dancing performances of the Panwang Festival have diverse rhythms, rhyming patterns, and dance forms, while the worship ritual is meticulously organized. The festival holds immense importance in the collective memory and knowledge system of the Yao people.

 

In 2006, the Panwang Festival was included on the first representative list of provincial-level intangible cultural heritage items, and in 2021, it was on the fifth representative list of national-level intangible cultural heritage items.