The Qiantang Tide is a world wonder, famous for its great momentum and majestic spectacle. The custom of Qiantang tide watching began in the Dynasties of Han and Wei, with a history of more than 2,000 years. In the 15th day of the eighth lunar month every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors would swarm to the banks of the Qiantang River to watch this world wonder-the Qiantang Tide. Yanguan at Haining is the best site for the tide watching. Many people make three viewing of the same tide: watching the "head-on tide" at the Ding Bridge, the "Thread Tide" at Yanguan, and the "Returning Tide" at the Old Yancang. In fact, the Qiantang River has tide everyday, though in the first and the 15th day of the lunar month, when the sun, the moon and the earth lie almost in a straight line, there will be the greatest tides, and thus the time for tide watching in a year is only a little more than 20 days.
First held in 1994, the China International Qiantang River Tide-Watching Festival has since been held every year, with its main site at the Yanguan Town of the Haining City.
The main content of the festival includes a large scale folk dance of Fete to the Tide Deity at the opening ceremony, which consists of performances of Navy Practice, Young Fisher's Tide Surfing, Hard Crossbow Tide Shooting, Respect Paying Ceremony to Tide and the Merry Celebration. The dance displays fully the folk customs of people at both banks of the Qiantang River in tide playing, tide fighting, and tide ceremony. There are also the temple fair in the Haishen Temple, with dragon dance and lion dance, the folk song of Lotus Falling, folk shadow play,
Beijing Opera performed by acrobatic teams, folk Huagu Opera, folk play of
Dalianxiang, folk vaudeville of Broadsword Dance, and so on. During the festival, the city of Haining will also hold the Xiashi light contest with traditional local features, adding a festival atmosphere to the period.
A sub-site is at the Tide-Watching city of the Xiaoshan City, with a one-hour large-scale water-borne performance as its main program at the intervals of the Qiantang tide, including parachute jumps with motorboats, water-skating with motorboats, and water-borne motorcycles.