The Yi Torch Festival, held for three days in late July or early August depending on the Yi calendar, is the most important festival in the Yi cultural calendar and the event that draws the most visitors to Xichang each year. The celebrations involve traditional Yi dress, fire — large torches carried through the streets and set along the roadsides — traditional music, wrestling, archery, and horse racing. The most visually intense part is the final night, when torches are lit simultaneously across the city.
The festival gives access to Yi cultural traditions that are otherwise relatively invisible to outsiders: the specific embroidered clothing styles of different sub-groups, the traditional songs performed in the Yi language, and the food — including a particular kind of Yi roasted lamb — that appears in street markets during the festival period. Book accommodation well in advance; Xichang fills completely during the main three days. The Yi New Year (Kuzhazha) in late October is a smaller celebration with fewer visitors and a more local character.