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The annual Chinese New Year Festival, River Hongbao (RHB), is back at Gardens by the Bay.

Taking place from Jan. 30 to Feb. 6, the hybrid event will have both physical and virtual events and activities.

More visitor slots

RHB 2022 will accommodate up to two times more people compared to last year.

Up to 4,400 visitors are allowed onto RHB's event grounds per time slot.

Each time slot is between two to four hours long, and those interested are required to pre-register and book their slots via the RHB website.

Registration opens from 11am on Jan. 19 and ends Jan. 21, and there is a maximum cap of five persons per registration.

Here are more details about RHB's booking time slots and visiting hours:

Registration will "open 30 minutes before and close 30 minutes after" each timeslot.

Upon registering successfully, visitors will receive a confirmation email with QR codes which can be used to enter RHB on the time slot on the event day respectively.

Visitors will be issued a coloured wristband at entry checkpoints. At the end of each time slot, visitors will have "half an hour to leave the event grounds".

No walk-ins will be allowed.

Visitors over the age of 12 have to be fully vaccinated.

More activities

RHB 2022 features a slew of virtual and physical activities lined up.

Physical activities

There will be six more giant lanterns on display this year, 30 in total.

Visitors can also expect to see the usual suspects, such as the God of Fortune and 12 animal Zodiacs, and an interactive music-themed lantern called “Rising after Challenges”.

There will also be an exhibition titled “Nian Hua: Changing Times, Unchanging Aspirations”, which showcases new year prints traditionally used to decorate Chinese homes during the Lunar New Year.

Besides these displays, visitors can enjoy live on-stage performances by local talents on different themed nights. This includes Getai Night, Xinyao Night and Singapore Talent Night.

Here are the performance timeslots:

Visitors can also look forward to amusements rides on the RHB event grounds, this includes a double-storey horse carousel, a giant inflatable playground, robotic rides, pirate ship, and trackless train rides.

RHB visitors can offer blessings or make wishes by releasing floating flowers on the Dragonfly Lake. All proceeds from the flower blessings will go to charity.

Here's a map of the RHB event grounds:

Virtual

The Nian Hua exhibition is also available as a virtual 360-degree exhibition on the RHB website, where visitors can participate in a fun interactive game related to the exhibition.

Visitors can also play the POSB #HuntYourZodiac mobile game, where they will have to hunt zodiac animals all around Singapore to earn Angbaos.

Angbao values can go up to S$888, and over S$180,000 worth of cash prizes can be won between the game period of Jan. 30 to Feb. 15.

There will also be contests and quizzes across Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook and the RHB website, where a total of S$5,000 worth of prizes is to be won.

Besides these, there are also educational programs, such as Fengshui tips for your homes in 2022, zodiac predictions in 2022, and how to make stylish and cute Tangyuan, for those looking to glean some Chinese New Year knowledge on the RHB website.

You can find out more about RHB here.

River Hongbao 2021

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Top image from River Hongbao website.