The Deepavali Festival Village opens on Campbell Lane in Little India at 7pm on Saturday, 10 October, with stalls selling traditional clothing, festive snacks, handicrafts and decorations. The Little India Shop Owners and Heritage Association (LISHA) runs the bazaar daily from 7pm to midnight until Sunday, 8 November, which is Deepavali itself.
That gives households five weekends of evening shopping before the day, from this one to 7 and 8 November. The bazaar is free to walk through, and Campbell Lane runs off Serangoon Road beside Little India Arcade, a short walk from Little India MRT station on the North East and Downtown lines.
What the stalls sell
LISHA lists four kinds of stall on the lane: traditional clothing, snacks, handicrafts and festive décor. Shops along Campbell Lane will also push their displays out into the street to sell Deepavali items, so the bazaar is the lane’s own merchants as well as the temporary stalls.
For a family getting ready for 8 November, that covers the usual list in one stretch: new clothes for the morning, sweets and savoury snacks for visiting, and decorations for the home.
Vouchers on the photo trail and the bus
LISHA’s Deepavali Photo Trail Challenge runs alongside the bazaar until 8 November. It is free and self-guided: visitors find 10 photo points around Little India and submit their photos through LISHA to enter weekly lucky draws. The prizes are shopping vouchers worth S$50, S$100 and S$150, which can be spent at participating Little India merchants.
The Big Bus Deepavali Tours also start on Saturday. The 45-minute ride leaves Orchard Hotel at 7pm and 8pm every Saturday until 28 November, loops through Little India to Racecourse Road under the street lights, and costs S$12 a person. Each ticket includes a S$5 food and beverage voucher for participating merchants. Bookings are on LISHA’s ticketing page.
Workshops on the lane
Two Saturday workshops sit on or near the bazaar. A Spice Blending Masterclass on Campbell Lane on 17 and 31 October, from 11am to 1pm, costs S$8 a person for 20 places; participants make garam masala and sambar powder with a local chef and take the blends, recipe cards and whole spices home. Clay Diya Painting at Tekka Place runs on the same two Saturdays, from 2pm to 4pm.
Evenings out in the haze
The Festival Village is an open-air street bazaar, and it opens in a week of haze. At 5am on Saturday, the 24-hour PSI was 127 to 177 across Singapore, in the unhealthy range, and the National Environment Agency forecast the unhealthy to low very unhealthy range. In the unhealthy range, NEA advises the elderly, pregnant women and children to minimise prolonged or strenuous outdoor exertion, and it uses the 1-hour PM2.5 reading for decisions about the next hour.
Deepavali falls on Sunday, 8 November, the bazaar’s last night, and the Ministry of Manpower lists Monday, 9 November, as the public holiday.
