Diwali: Lights of India

Diwali: Lights of India comes to the Armory Food & Event Hall at Seattle Center on Saturday, November 7, 2026. It's a free event that kicks off at 12 PM, and it's part of the Festál series, the city's ongoing celebration of different cultures through the arts.

If you've never come across it, Diwali is the Festival of Lights, one of India's major cultural celebrations. It falls every autumn and symbolizes the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. Families and friends mark it with new clothes, feasts, sweets, gifts, and firecrackers, and the goddess Lakshmi is worshipped for prosperity. This particular staging brings those traditions to the Armory, and the program is built around a few different disciplines: music, dance, visual art, martial arts, and a cooking demonstration. It's a broad look at the holiday rather than just one thing, so you'll see a fair amount of variety across the afternoon.

Behind the scenes, the event is presented in partnership with Northwest Share, a 501(c)3 nonprofit founded in Seattle in 2000. They organize arts and cultural festivals across Washington State and run vegetarian food trucks and free food distribution, so this fits right into what they do. The whole thing is part of Festál, the Seattle Center series that brings different cultural traditions to the city throughout the year.

It's free to attend, so you can drop in whenever you like. It starts at 12 PM on Saturday, November 7, at the Armory Food & Event Hall, 305 Harrison Street, Seattle, WA 98109.