The Sarakiki-Hadang Festival is Calbayog's main festival, held every September around the city's fiesta in honour of Our Lady of the Nativity. The "sarakiki" — the Waray word for the strutting movement of a cock courting a hen or threatening another rooster — is acted out in elaborate group choreography. Dancers in painstakingly detailed rooster costumes parade through the main streets, then converge on the Christ the King College grounds for the formal contest.
Founded in the mid-1990s as a way to give Calbayognons a unifying civic identity, the festival has steadily expanded into a multi-day event with food stalls, brass bands, and street performances filling the downtown. Time a visit around the first week of September if you want to see the city at its most celebratory. Hotels in town book up well ahead.