2026 Feb. 14 Chinese/ Lunar New Year Events Review

George Washington High School 

This is one of the events that I try to get to each year. Like most years, this event was running a bit behind. Some of the tables were still setting up a half hour after the event was supposed to start. There was a mix of tables selling products, companies and banks drumming up business, food vendors, and a kids area. 

They had this group in the food area singing. I didn't catch the name of the group. I wish they would have been mictrophoned better. You could really only hear one person when they randomly stepped forward to the microphone.

Some of the many different things you could buy. They had items like clothes, toys, cultural goods, beauty products, and more. I was sad that the plushie seller wasn't there this year. First time they missed the event in at least 3 years. Some of the vendors have been doing this event as far back as I can remember.

1st Bank was one of the booths running super late. They also limited there give aways to one per family instead of 1 per person. This was something that I would notice at other tables as well. There was a massive reduction in what was being given away for free. It shows how the bad economy is impacting communities and celebrating holidays.

This back corner led to where the pay to view performance is. I have never seen the performance, so I can't give any info on it.

One of the things I found cool was one of the tables had this poster in front highlighting a historic Asian American woman. Super cool and I intend to try and learn more about her when I get the chance.

Food is also a part of a lot of New Year Festivals.

The prices were hit or miss this year. Like Latea was selling small cups for the same price that other vendors had larger cups that included Boba (Latea was charging extra for boba). So look around the festival first to make sure that you don't loose money from vendors just raising their prices.

Also another sign of the times is the main food vendor also super raised their prices from last year. 3 items last year was $12 where as this year it was $14, then the 4 items did an even bigger jump from $15 to $18. Due to both the higher prices and them taking so long to set up, we didn't get anything from them this year. The food that we did get, I will post a review of on the In My Mouth Colorado Blog.

Aurora Mall (Aurora Town Center)

The first performance of the day was U.S. Taekwondo doing a martial arts demonstration.

Guiding Mountain was also there to do a lion and dragon dance. We didn't stay for that one since it was also a Pokémon Go special day and we had to get to Park Meadows.

They had these cute balloons around their sign.

They also had a kid area with activities. 

Last year they had more then just coloring sheets. They had cool kits like a snow globe you could put together. This against shows how places were having to cut back the funds they put into events.

They were giving away some Lego sets which was cool.

This event is OK. I think there is a lot they could do to expand this event. I wish that they would add tables/vendors and have some type of market. Also there wasn't any food. They should have had some type of food offering since food is so important to celebrating most holidays. I hope in the future that they will make this event bigger instead of just being performance focused.