Saturday, August 8th + Sunday, August 9th, 2009. Rain or shine.
Meadow Lake, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY
Cost: Free
For all ages
Hong Kong Dragon Boat Race/Festival in NY (HKDBF-NY), a multicultural celebration and sporting event, is the largest multi-cultural Festival in New York and the largest festival of its kind in the U.S. HKDBF NY keeps up the age old tradition of Dragon Boat Racing in colorful, custom made teak boats, virtual works of art gliding on the water. For seventeen successful years HKDBF-NY has attracted a diverse, multi-cultural audience of more than 50,000 attendees from throughout North America. With more than 150 well-trained teams, involving more than 1,500 participants competing from across the U.S. and Canada, this year's festival is expected to be notable for both its scale and fierce competition.
The festival takes place over two days on the site of the 1964 World’s Fair, featuring events for the entire family. The Opening Day Ceremony/Parade at noon on Saturday, August 8th will be MC’d by WNBC TV 4’s Pei-Sze Cheng, followed by the New York City Championship Race. The finals in the U.S. Dragon Boat Open Championship will be held on Sunday, August 9th with the competitors striving for their share of the cash and prizes.
Racing starts at 9:00 am and events last throughout each day until 5:00 pm, rain or shine. Renowned race announcer and color commentator Ian Brooks will return once again to serve as the race announcer. Other festival events consist of two new cup races “The Hong Kong Invitational and the Municipal Invitational,” featuring members of the Hong Kong family and teams from various elected officials offices, the Media Invitational/Metro Asian Food Magazine Cup media challenge with teams racing for many of NY's finest media outlets, the fierce Corporate Challenge, with many Fortune 500 companies fighting it out on the water, special youth, charity, women’s, and sponsor races, the Sing Tao photo contest, as well as presentations on the Verizon Stage of traditional Chinese arts, martial arts demonstrations, the traditional Dragon dance, musical and other diverse performances and demonstrations of folk arts and crafts.
The festival takes place over two days on the site of the 1964 World’s Fair, featuring events for the entire family. The Opening Day Ceremony/Parade at noon on Saturday, August 8th will be MC’d by WNBC TV 4’s Pei-Sze Cheng, followed by the New York City Championship Race. The finals in the U.S. Dragon Boat Open Championship will be held on Sunday, August 9th with the competitors striving for their share of the cash and prizes.
Racing starts at 9:00 am and events last throughout each day until 5:00 pm, rain or shine. Renowned race announcer and color commentator Ian Brooks will return once again to serve as the race announcer. Other festival events consist of two new cup races “The Hong Kong Invitational and the Municipal Invitational,” featuring members of the Hong Kong family and teams from various elected officials offices, the Media Invitational/Metro Asian Food Magazine Cup media challenge with teams racing for many of NY's finest media outlets, the fierce Corporate Challenge, with many Fortune 500 companies fighting it out on the water, special youth, charity, women’s, and sponsor races, the Sing Tao photo contest, as well as presentations on the Verizon Stage of traditional Chinese arts, martial arts demonstrations, the traditional Dragon dance, musical and other diverse performances and demonstrations of folk arts and crafts.
On Sunday from noon to one pm Chef One hosts their 5th annual “Dumpling Eating Contest,” with over $3,600 in cash & prizes+ 2 overnite stays at Foxwoods at stake. HSBC provides family style entertainment at their booth and the HKETO celebrates the Olympics at theirs. An ethnic food court and booths staffed by sponsors of the event, many of whom will be giving away promotional items, and many community-based organizations help make for a unique, action packed, multi-cultural, New York weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for visiting nycfamilyfun! Because this is a kid-friendly site, comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author. Only family-appropriate comments please. ABSOLUTELY NO unrelated or non-kid-friendly ADS, LINKS or soliciting will be posted.