After more than 18 months of gloom brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival is lighting up Hong Kong, with illuminated installations springing up all around town.

A glowing, three-dimensional moon 15 metres across sits on a tugboat in the Kwun Tong typhoon shelter, right next to the Kai Tak cruise terminal.

On the adjacent promenade, just below the Kwun Tong Bypass, are rabbit figurines of various sizes – also illuminated.

Visitors take in the lanterns and other illuminated offerings at the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, which is marking its 100th anniversary during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival.

At Wan Chai’s temporary promenade, celebrations on Tuesday night will commence when two small moons are also lit up, and Victoria Park in nearby Causeway Bay will mark the holiday with its long-running lantern carnival.

The Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, meanwhile, is celebrating both the Mid-Autumn Festival and its 100th anniversary with a carnival and illuminated display of dragons and figures from Chinese mythology.

And over in Tai Po, a moon-shaped lantern floated down the Lam Tsuen River for the first time ever on Monday, part of an initiative by current and former district councillors and local residents.

“I like this kind of community self-initiated activities,” said one 27-year-old Tai Po resident, who declined to be named. “I don’t think there will be this kind of stuff happening often in the future, so I want to be part of it while I still can.”

The Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar, with a history dating back over 3,000 years to when emperors worshipped the moon in hopes of reaping bountiful harvests.

Victoria Park is marking this year’s festival with its long-running lantern carnival.

Last year’s festivities were comparatively subdued, as social-distancing measures brought on by the city’s third wave of coronavirus infections kept many from celebrating in large groups.

One of the biggest local celebrations this year is the one in Kwun Tong. According to business group Gp42, the organiser of the “Fly Me to the Moon” event at the Kwun Tong Promenade, there will be a 3D light show on the waterfront facades of the Kowloon Flour Mills and Dah Keung Godown.

The gigantic moon and the glowing rabbits, along with a Canto-pop concert featuring RubberBand and hawkers offering traditional foods, are also part of the free carnivallike programme, which runs from Monday to Wednesday.

A spokesman for Gp42 said there had been 2,000 visitors to the event on the first day.

The event, which cost HK$2.5 million (US$321,000) to put on, is sponsored by the pro-establishment Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce.

“Photographers have more space for creativity with a big moon,” said visitor and photographer Francis Lo. “For the girls, a moonlight background is great for selfies.”

People select lanterns at a papier-mache offering shop in Yuen Long for this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival.

Back in Tai Po, about 1,000 people turned out on Monday to watch the roughly two-metre-wide moon lantern be towed down the river by a kayaker.

The lantern passed by Yuen Chau Tsai island and the Kwong Fuk estate, before merging with the larger Tai Po River and coming to a stop at the Yip Tin bridge.

“In mid-autumn and at Lunar New Year, people reunite as a family,” said Max Wu Yiu-cheong, one of the coordinators, who resigned from his seat on the Tai Po district council earlier this year. “I think these events can cheer up Hongkongers a bit during this hard time.”

The event, however, will not be repeated on Tuesday night because of a lack of manpower.

And Tai Po is not the only area cancelling events. The village of Tai O is suspending lantern-lighting festivities on four of the coming 10 days after thousands of visitors brought the picturesque fishing community to a standstill.