A massive crowd gathered on the evening of Sept 14 at Shanghai's Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street to watch the floats parade and performances marking the opening of the 35th Shanghai Tourism Festival. This year, a total of 25 performance teams and 25 colorful floats joined the opening ceremony.

The float from Legoland Shanghai Resort was the first to appear, giving citizens and visitors a sneak peek at the upcoming Legoland amusements projects set to debut next year.

The floats from Lin-gang Special Area and the performance troupe from Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park brought the infinite vitality of the young area to the public while cultural and tourism-themed float of Jilin province participated for the first time in the Shanghai Tourism Festival, showcasing the charm of ice and snow through snowflake designs and elements of skiing.

Additionally, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, the 45th anniversary of China-US diplomatic relations, and the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Poland. To mark that spirit, performance troupes from various countries brought passionate performances to the ceremony.

Following the opening ceremony, the floats will travel to major business districts and neighborhoods in 11 districts for parade displays running through Sept 27.

Nearly 200 themed tours, activities, and products will be introduced during the tourism festival, which will last until Oct 6. The closing ceremony will be held at the Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park in Lin-gang Special Area.

A series of key events are scheduled throughout this year's festival, such as the Great Art of Dunhuang exhibition will take place at the China Art Museum from Sept 20 to Dec 20, and sports tournament such as the Motocross World Championship, the Tour of Shanghai from Sept 20 to 22, and the Head of Shanghai River Regatta from Sept 28 to 20.

Throughout the festival, many tourist attractions in the eight branch venues, including Dunhuang in Gansu province, Shigatse in Xizang autonomous region, Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Huangshan in Anhui province, Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, Yancheng, Nantong, and Jingjiang in Jiangsu province, will be open to Shanghai residents for free to celebrate the festival together.