Sarawak has a festival or major holiday in almost every month of the year, but the ones that change daily life are Gawai Dayak (June 1 and 2), Chinese New Year (late January or February), and Hari Raya Aidilfitri (which moves earlier each year on the lunar calendar). The event most tourists travel for is the Rainforest World Music Festival, usually held over a weekend in mid-year at the Sarawak Cultural Village in Damai.
What makes Sarawak different from the rest of Malaysia is that its calendar runs on three overlapping cultures at once: Dayak, Chinese, and Malay, plus the Melanau and Orang Ulu communities most outsiders never hear about. If you are moving here or planning an extended visit, the festival calendar is worth learning early, because it decides when the city is full, when it empties, and when half the shops on your street are shut. The single most useful one to read up on first is Gawai Dayak, because it is the festival that most defines Sarawak and the one I most often see newcomers, myself included at the start, misjudge.
TL;DR
- Gawai Dayak (June 1–2) is Sarawak’s signature festival and a two-day public holiday; the city empties as people return to their longhouses.
- Chinese New Year (late Jan or Feb) and Hari Raya Aidilfitri are the other two festivals that shut shops and quiet the city for several days.
- The Rainforest World Music Festival, mid-year at Damai, is the one event most worth flying in for, and it sells out.
- Kuching Festival is a month-long August food fair, not a religious holiday; it is the easiest big event to just turn up to.
- Sarawak-specific festivals outsiders miss: Kaul (Melanau, around April), Borneo Cultural Festival in Sibu (July), and Mid-Autumn / Mooncake (September or October).
- The balik-kampung holidays (Gawai, Hari Raya, CNY) are a poor time for a first visit; many shops and eateries close for days.
What festivals are celebrated in Sarawak?
Sarawak’s year holds far more than the three big public holidays. Some are nationwide Malaysian festivals that land here too. Others are Sarawak-only, tied to peoples who live nowhere else in such numbers. Below is the full calendar, with rough timing, what each one is, whether it is a public holiday, and whether it is worth building a trip around. Treat the public-holiday column as a guide, because Sarawak gazettes some holidays separately from federal Malaysia, and the lunar-calendar festivals shift date every year.
| Festival | Rough timing | What it is | Public holiday? | Worth travelling for? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese New Year | Late Jan or Feb | Lunar new year; reunion dinners, open houses, lion dance | Yes (2 days) | If you have local hosts; otherwise the city is shut |
| Kaul (Pesta Kaul) | Around March or April | Melanau sea-spirit festival, biggest in Mukah | No (regional event) | Yes, for something genuinely Sarawak-only |
| Hari Raya Aidilfitri | Moves earlier yearly (around March 2026) | Marks the end of Ramadan; Malay open houses | Yes (2 days) | Only with an invitation; city goes quiet |
| Gawai Dayak | June 1–2 | Dayak harvest thanksgiving; longhouse open houses | Yes (2 days) | Yes, if invited or via a public event |
| Rainforest World Music Festival | Mid-year (usually a weekend around June–July) | International music festival at the Cultural Village | No (ticketed event) | Yes, the top reason to fly in |
| Borneo Cultural Festival | July | Sibu’s ten-day multicultural street festival | No (city event) | If you are already up in Sibu |
| Kuching Festival | August (about a month) | Huge city food fair plus stage shows | No (city event) | Yes, easiest big event to attend |
| Mid-Autumn / Mooncake | Sept or Oct | Chinese lantern and mooncake festival; Carpenter Street fills | No | A nice evening, not a trip in itself |
| Hari Raya Aidiladha | Moves yearly | The Muslim “festival of sacrifice” | Yes (1 day) | No, a quieter family holiday |
| Deepavali | Oct or Nov | Hindu festival of lights; small but real here | Yes | No, Sarawak’s Indian community is small |
| Christmas | December | Widely marked; Sarawak has many Christian Dayak families | Yes | A pleasant time to visit, city stays open |
When is Gawai Dayak?
Gawai Dayak falls on June 1 and 2 every year, and those are both public holidays in Sarawak. It is the harvest thanksgiving of the Dayak peoples, the Iban, Bidayuh, and Orang Ulu, and it is the festival that feels most particular to this state. The celebrating starts on the evening of May 31 and trails on for a week or more in the longhouses.
Living in Kuching, I felt Gawai before anyone explained it to me. Offices close. Colleagues drive back to their kampung. Supermarkets stack bamboo and the ingredients for tuak (home-brewed rice wine), and Dayak pop takes over the radio. You can take part if a Dayak friend invites you to their open house, or by booking the public Gawai programme that the Sarawak Cultural Village runs at Damai. What you cannot do is turn up uninvited at a stranger’s longhouse. The full etiquette, the food, and the practical planning are covered in the Gawai Dayak guide.
What is the Rainforest World Music Festival?
The Rainforest World Music Festival, usually shortened to RWMF, is a three-day international music festival held at the Sarawak Cultural Village in Damai, about 45 minutes north of the city. It pairs daytime music workshops in the village’s longhouses with evening main-stage concerts, and it draws acts and crowds from across the world. It is the one Sarawak event that people regularly fly in for, and it has been running since 1998.
Tickets sell out and accommodation near Damai books up months ahead, so plan early if you want to go. The full breakdown of dates, ticket types, where to stay, and how to get to Damai is in the Rainforest World Music Festival guide. One honest note before you build a trip around it: it is held outdoors at the edge of rainforest in the wet tropics, so an afternoon downpour during the festival is not unusual, and the field turns to mud fast.
Which Sarawak festivals do most visitors miss?
The three big ones get all the attention. The festivals that actually tell you something about Sarawak are the smaller, regional ones, and most guidebooks skip them.
Kaul (Pesta Kaul) is the Melanau festival, held around March or April, biggest in the coastal town of Mukah. It began as a ritual to appease the sea spirits before the fishing season, and the centrepiece is the seraheng, a tall decorated offering pole. The Melanau are one of Sarawak’s oldest communities, and Kaul is the clearest window into their world. It is a regional event rather than a state holiday, so you go to Mukah for it.
The Borneo Cultural Festival runs for about ten days in July in Sibu, the working river town up the Rajang. It is a street festival built around the town’s Chinese, Malay, Melanau, and Dayak communities, with nightly food, stage performances, and a parade. If you are already heading up to Sibu, timing your visit for the festival is an easy win, though Sibu is a commercial town rather than a polished tourist city, so set your expectations accordingly.
Mid-Autumn, or the Mooncake Festival, lands in September or October. In Kuching it centres on the old Chinese quarter, and Carpenter Street fills with lanterns, mooncakes, and stalls in the evenings. It is a lovely night out if you are already here. It is not a reason to book a flight.
Which Sarawak festivals are public holidays?
Knowing which festivals close the banks matters more for daily life than the celebrations themselves. Sarawak observes a mix of federal Malaysian holidays and its own state-gazetted ones, and Gawai is the clearest example of the latter. For the exact gazetted dates each year, check the official Sarawak state holiday gazette and the federal Malaysia public-holiday list; the Sarawak public holidays guide keeps a running version.
The reliable public-holiday festivals are Chinese New Year (two days), Hari Raya Aidilfitri (two days), Gawai Dayak (June 1 and 2), Hari Raya Aidiladha, Deepavali, and Christmas. The big ticketed and city events, RWMF, the Borneo Cultural Festival, Kuching Festival, and Mid-Autumn, are not public holidays, which is part of why they are easier to attend: the city keeps running around them.
Which festivals actually shut the city or fill it?
From a resident’s calendar, only a handful of dates genuinely change how Kuching functions, and they split into two kinds: the ones that empty the city and the ones that fill it.
The emptying festivals are the balik-kampung holidays, when people go home to their families. Gawai sends the Dayak community back to the longhouses. Chinese New Year clears out the Chinese community. Hari Raya does the same for Malay families. On those days, whole stretches of independent kopitiams and hawker stalls put up a handwritten sign or simply do not open, and they do not always tell you in advance.
The filling festivals are the events that pull crowds in. Kuching Festival in August turns a stretch of the city into a month-long food fair every evening. RWMF packs out Damai. The Mid-Autumn night markets crowd Carpenter Street. These are the dates when the city is at its liveliest, and they are the easier ones to plan a visit around precisely because nothing shuts.
What about Kuching Festival and the food fair?
Kuching Festival is a roughly month-long city celebration in August, and for most residents the main event is the food fair: rows of stalls running every evening, selling everything from grilled seafood to regional snacks you will not find the rest of the year. It is run by the city council to mark Kuching’s elevation to city status in 1988, and it includes stage shows and a fun fair alongside the eating.
It is the most accessible big event on the calendar. There is no ticket to celebrating it, no invitation needed, and nothing closes. You turn up hungry in the evening, walk the rows, and eat your way down them. If you are new to Sarawak food, it is a fast way to taste a lot of it in one place, and it pairs naturally with reading up on what to eat in Kuching first so you know what you are pointing at.
Which festivals are worth planning a trip around?
If you are choosing dates for a visit rather than already living here, three events justify building the calendar around them, and one stretch is best actively avoided.
Plan a trip for the Rainforest World Music Festival if you want the headline experience, booking tickets and Damai accommodation well ahead. Plan for Gawai Dayak only if you have a genuine invitation or a confirmed place on a public programme, because without one you will hit a closed city and miss the festival itself. Plan for Kuching Festival in August if you want the lowest-effort, highest-reward option: great food, no logistics, nothing shut.
And the honest counterpoint: during the big balik-kampung holidays, Gawai, Hari Raya, and Chinese New Year, Kuching empties and many shops and eateries close for several days. Those are a bad time for a first visit, full stop. I’ve watched friends arrive expecting the city at full tilt and find it running at half speed, their shortlist of places to eat shuttered with no warning posted on the door. If those are the only dates you can travel, the malls and chains stay open, but what you’ll see is a hollowed-out version of the city, not the one the rest of this site is about.
Where to start
Pick the one festival that fits your reason for coming, then read its dedicated guide before you book anything. If you are choosing a month for a first visit and want the city open and busy, aim for August and the Kuching Festival food fair. If you want the festival that best explains Sarawak, read the Gawai Dayak guide and start asking the Dayak people you know what their family does for June 1. The festival I still think about is not one I bought a ticket to. It was a June afternoon on a longhouse veranda, a warm cup of tuak in hand, that began with a colleague saying “come back to ours for Gawai”, “ours” being how we’d say our family home back in Manchester.
Keep exploring Kuching Insider: Gawai Dayak, Chinese New Year in Kuching, the Rainforest World Music Festival, Hari Raya in Sarawak, the Sarawak Cultural Village, and Sarawak’s public holidays.
Last updated: June 2026. Festival timings and public-holiday status checked against the Sarawak Tourism Board events calendar and the Sarawak state public-holiday gazette, June 2026.
Borneo Jazz Festival (Miri, July)
The Borneo Jazz Festival runs over a weekend each July at the Miri waterfront, about four hours north of Kuching by road. It draws international and regional jazz acts and is one of the few major music events outside Kuching worth factoring into a Sarawak itinerary. It is not a public holiday and the city does not close around it, so if you are already planning time in northern Sarawak, timing a visit to Miri around it is straightforward.
Regatta Kuching (November)
The Sarawak Regatta is one of the oldest events on the calendar, with boat races on the Sarawak River that go back to the 1800s. Teams race traditional wooden boats on the river in front of the waterfront esplanade, and the day pulls a mixed crowd of locals and visitors. It is a free, outdoor event, and the atmosphere on the riverbank is worth the trip on its own. Dates move slightly year to year; check the Sarawak Tourism Board calendar in advance.