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Witness / Attend in Yanshui
Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival
A quiet old town in the north of Tainan, once a thriving river port, now known across Taiwan for one wild night a year. During the Lantern Festival, Yanshui stages the Beehive Fireworks Festival around its Wu Temple, firing walls of bottle rockets straight into armoured crowds, a folk rite of driving out plague and bad luck that is counted among the most intense religious festivals in the world.
No overall organizer. Yanshui Wu Temple anchors the event; the rest belongs to the streets.
Dates & details verified against: Official city source ↗
Why here
The Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival is one of the most extreme folk events on earth, a night when a small Tainan town deliberately fires tens of thousands of bottle rockets point-blank into the people standing in front of them. It centres on Yanshui Wu Temple, dedicated to the warrior deity Guan Gong, and dates to the nineteenth century, when townsfolk say a rocket barrage during the Lantern Festival drove out a cholera epidemic. Ever since, on Lantern Festival night, sedan chairs carrying the gods are paraded through the streets and stopped before huge frames called beehives, packed with rockets, which are lit so that the swarm of screaming fireworks blasts into the surrounding crowd. Participants pack into full-face helmets, thick jackets, gloves and towels and stand in the storm on purpose, believing the more rockets strike you the more luck you carry into the year. It is loud, chaotic and seriously dangerous, and to witness it is to see faith and adrenaline collide. Watch from the edge unless you are fully geared and ready for the barrage.
Best months
The festival runs over the Lantern Festival, the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the first lunar month, so it falls in February or early March; in 2027 that is around 19 to 20 February, with Tainan City publishing the confirmed dates each year. The action is at night and continues into the early hours as the god sedans move between beehive frames. This is a real safety hazard: anyone entering the rocket zone must wear a full-face motorcycle helmet, thick non-synthetic clothing, gloves, a towel around the neck and ear protection, and follow the crowd marshals. Spectators can watch from a safer distance. Expect intense noise, smoke and dense crowds.
Getting there & around
Yanshui is in the north of Tainan, reached by bus or car from Tainan or Chiayi; there is no rail station in the town, so most visitors come by shuttle bus laid on for the festival or by car and park on the edge of town. There is no admission and no booking to attend. If you plan to stand in the barrage, bring or buy proper protection beforehand, as a helmet and thick clothing are essential and cotton, not synthetic, fabric is advised against melting sparks. Come early to see the temple processions build through the evening, and check the Tainan City festival page for the year's exact dates, routes and safety rules.
Skill levels: beginner
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