Austin Dragon Boat Festival

The Lunar Foundation is proud to co-host this workshop with Austin Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment (ACME), the City of Austin's cultural funding arm and a key partner in our work.

If you're an artist, arts group, or professional musician, this session will walk you through the FY27 Elevate Grant guidelines and application process, so you can apply with confidence.

📅 Tuesday, July 28, 2026
🕕 6:00PM - 7:30PM
📍 8401 Cameron Rd, Austin, TX 78754

Free and open to the public. Registration is recommended, as sessions are likely to fill up.

ACME's Elevate Grant program directly funds the cultural work that makes Austin, well, Austin. Their Elevate Grant helped power the 2026 Austin Dragon Boat Festival, and their support extends across the arts ecosystem citywide. We're helping spread the word because we want more artists, especially AANHPI artists and arts organizations, to access these opportunities.

🎟️ RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fy27-elevate-grant-workshop-in-person-tickets-1993462908221

See you there. 🌟

ADBF 2026 by the numbers 📊🐉

The 26th Annual Austin Dragon Boat Festival made history this April, and the receipts are in. Swipe through to see what your community built together.

To every artist, performer, food vendor, paddler, volunteer, and partner who showed up: this is what you helped create. Your work reached more eyes, more screens, and more new audiences than ever before in the festival's 26-year history.

As we look back one month post-event, we are still reflecting on the incredible cultural arts that brought the 26th Annual Austin Dragon Boat Festival to life.

Our main stage and outdoor gallery were the true heart of the festival, directly supporting 163 AANHPI artists and culinary entrepreneurs in a single day. This included 145 performers representing 14 different cultural traditions and 12 local visual artists.

We are incredibly proud of the massive exposure these creators received this year. Between an estimated 3,000 in-person attendees, 62,000+ social media views, and coverage across 8 major Austin media outlets, our local AANHPI talent was truly center stage.

Thank you to everyone who showed up to celebrate and support our community's heritage!

Video credit: ZCreative Media
Organized by The Lunar Foundation and the Asian American Cultural Center.

Did you hear? The Austin Dragon Boat Festival is the FIRST AANHPI cultural festival officially co-sponsored by the City of Austin Government.

This means ADBF now joins a select group of events, including SXSW and the Texas Book Festival, that the city permanently recognizes and supports year after year. Unlike a one-time grant, which requires reapplying for funding each cycle, a city co-sponsorship means ADBF receives annual fee waivers as a matter of city policy. That is a level of recognition our community's cultural events have never received before.

This designation is 26 years in the making, and it would not have happened without the legacy Amy Wong Mok of the Asian American Cultural Center built.

A big thank you to the Mayor & City Council members: Kirk Watson Councilwoman Vanessa Fuentes Council Member José Velásquez Mayor Pro Tem José "Chito" Vela Council Member Ryan Alter CM Krista Laine Mike Siegel Paige Ellis Council Member Zohaib "Zo" Qadri, District 9 Council Member Marc Duchen