On New Year's Eve, CCTV's 2025 Spring Festival Gala will celebrate the arrival of the Chinese New Year with Chinese people at home and abroad. The theme of this year's Spring Festival Gala is "May you be blessed with good fortune and everlasting prosperity".
As the first Spring Festival Gala of CCTV after the successful application of the Spring Festival for World Heritage, we will continue to adhere to the principle of "opening the door to host the Spring Festival Gala" and devote ourselves to creating a joyful, auspicious and festive "People's Spring Festival Gala". On New Year's Eve, the four branch venues will join hands with the main venue in Beijing to present a heartfelt and steaming "cultural New Year's Eve dinner" to the global audience.
The creative team is composed of chief director Yu Lei, deputy chief directors Zhao Dazhi and Yang Jinmeng, and Liu Huizi, Zhang Yifan, Song Fei, Deng Yun, Bi Bo, Zhang Ji, Gu Zhigang, Zhang Min, Hao Jing, and Liu Xin.
Ren Luyu, Sa Beining, Nigmat, Long Yang, and Ma Fanshu will serve as hosts of the 2025 Spring Festival Gala in Beijing.
The Chongqing session was hosted by CCTV host Zhang Tao and Chongqing Satellite TV host He Miaomiao;
The Hubei Wuhan branch was hosted by CCTV host Yang Fan and Hubei TV host Chen Chao; the Tibet Lhasa branch was hosted by CCTV host Zhu Xun and Lhasa Media Center host Starobu;
The Jiangsu Wuxi branch was hosted by CCTV host Wang Yinqi and Jiangsu Radio and Television Station host Li Hao.
Host lineup
The Chongqing venue brought the distinctive songs, dances and New Year customs performances of Bayu, which were hot, hot and fashionable.
The Wuhan venue incorporates new opera, acrobatics, Chu music and classic film and television IP, and its high-spirited attitude fully demonstrates that "the heroic city is still in the present";
The Wuxi branch venue organically links traditional tunes and scene interpretations, with historical context and modern civilization complementing each other, making the "Pearl of Taihu Lake" more brilliant;
The authentic ethnic performances and carefully designed special sessions at the Lhasa branch venue demonstrated the touching friendship of people of all ethnic groups who are closely dependent on each other and help each other like pomegranate seeds, and conveyed their firm confidence in working together to build a beautiful new home.
The Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Snake continues to deepen the creative concept of "the people's Spring Festival Gala", focusing more on ordinary people who work hard and devote themselves to it, inviting ordinary but great fighters to come to the stage and become the protagonists of the Spring Festival Gala. At the same time, through the "Spring Festival Gala Waiting for You" event, "Green Slow Train Conductor" Hu Guichuan, "Auntie Maizi" Qin Shifang, and "Takeaway Poet" Wang Jibing were invited to watch the rehearsal on site and feel the warm atmosphere of the Spring Festival Gala up close.
The 2025 Spring Festival Gala stage is shaped like a "Ruyi" that connects the main stage and the audience seats, which maximizes the immersive and interactive feeling of the Spring Festival Gala and conveys the blessing of everything going well. Virtual reality, naked-eye 3D, ultra-high-definition visual projection and other technologies will also be fully applied on the Spring Festival Gala stage to create an infinitely changing and richly layered "Ruyi" space.
Faye Wong performs again, OneRepublic comes to China
This year's Spring Festival Gala has carefully arranged a variety of programs, including singing and dancing, opera, martial arts, language programs, etc., incorporating rich intangible cultural heritage elements to promote international cultural exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. The program content covers both tradition and modernity, with both creative transformation and innovative expression of China's excellent traditional culture, as well as praise and record of the strugglers in the new era.
Faye Wong will once again take the stage of CCTV Spring Festival Gala to sing "What the World Gave Me". Returning to the Spring Festival Gala stage after an absence of 8 years, Faye Wong will call for the arrival of spring with the song "embracing the world's tenderness and returning it with deep affection".
Eason Chan will sing "The Lone Warrior" with several Olympic athletes; Fish Leong will sing "The One Living in My Heart" solo. Yan Ni, Yin Tao, Song Jia, Jiang Xin, several actresses who are deeply loved by the audience will sing the song "What If".
Yan Ni, Yin Tao, Song Jia, Jiang Xin
There will also be some unexpected groups performing, such as Li Yuchun and Yi Yang Qianxi will bring the song "Together China Fun", Xiao Jingteng and Wang Yibo will collaborate on "I Can".
What is surprising is that at the Wuhan branch venue, the American pop rock band OneRepublic will go to the Yellow Crane Tower to sing the classic song "Counting Stars".
Unknowingly, Zhou Shen, who has a heavenly voice, has become a mainstay of the Spring Festival Gala stage. This year, he will collaborate with a Peruvian singer on a song called "Mountain Eagle and Orchid". I believe that this song, a fusion of Chinese and foreign ethnic groups, will bring a unique audio-visual experience to audiences around the world.
"Shi Qintian", who appeared on the Spring Festival Gala stage for the first time last year, will bring the Spring Festival Gala opening visual show "Welcome the Blessing" together with Yang Jianjun, Liziqi and others this year.
Last year, Chen Chusheng, Zhang Yuan, Wang Zhengliang, Lu Hu, Su Xing, and Wang Yuexin sang a song "Friends Like You" together, which became one of the most popular programs in the Spring Festival Gala in 2024. In 2025, they gathered again and collaborated with Tony Leung, Wang Baoqiang, Huang Xuan, Lu Yanting, Tan Xiao, and Aruna to bring the audience a song "Climbing High".
"Shen Ma" reunites, "White Snake" borrows an umbrella
Language programs have always been the most popular with audiences and are also the most challenging for actors in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
In 2024, Yue Yunpeng appeared on CCTV Spring Festival Gala for the seventh time, performing the crosstalk "I Want to be Different" with his partner Sun Yue. Due to excessive pressure, his performance was not satisfactory. This year, they will cooperate again to bring the crosstalk "Let's Tell Crosstalk Together". We look forward to Xiao Yueyue making every joke count.
I still remember the sketch "Today's Happiness 2" performed by Shen Teng and Ma Li in the 2013 Spring Festival Gala. The "Shen Ma Combination" became famous overnight and has since become a regular guest of the Spring Festival Gala: "Help or Not", "Catering to His Favors", "Not Returning", "Going Through the Motions"... The famous line of that year, "What defeats you is not innocence, but your lack of shoes (innocence)!" is still fresh in my memory. This year, the "Shen Ma Combination" performed the sketch "The Golden Son-in-law" for the ninth time on the Spring Festival Gala with Sun Qian and Song Yang.
Last year, the activeness of comedy shows brought many outstanding actors to the stage. They will also show their skills on the stage of this year's Spring Festival Gala. Will they make dumplings on the spot? Liu Yang, Song Tianshuo, and Yuwen Qiushi will present the skit "Xiao Ming's Family"; Wang Hongkun, Shang Daqing, Zhang Haiyan, Li Chuan, and Sun Zhongqiu will perform the skit "Flower Rack"; the Manzai brothers will perform the dialogue "Don't Keep "Cheats" and "Fakes"".
The skit "Borrowing an Umbrella" revolves around the classic scene of "Borrowing an Umbrella on the Broken Bridge" in "The Legend of the White Snake", and cleverly connects the four operas of Peking Opera, Cantonese Opera, Sichuan Opera, and Yue Opera. It maximizes the comedy effect in a series of unexpected "misunderstandings" and also sends the audience the beautiful blessing of "all lovers in the world will eventually get married". As the Year of the Snake is approaching, the appearance of special guests "White Snake" Zhao Yazhi and "Xu Xian" Cecilia Cheung is also worth looking forward to.
The successful application of Beijing's Central Axis for World Heritage status has once again attracted global attention to ancient Chinese architecture. Cui Donghui, professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and vice dean of the School of Architecture, introduced the Chinese traditional architecture creation show "Dongliang" inspired by the mortise and tenon structure, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and the Central Axis of Beijing. The visual design of the show is based on the precious manuscripts of ancient buildings drawn by Mr. Liang Sicheng, and is made into a three-dimensional architectural model.
Pillars
Cui Donghui recalled the indissoluble bond between his mother, Chang Shana, a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, and Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin. It was because of the influence of Mr. Liang and Mr. Lin that Mr. Chang Shana embarked on the road of revival of traditional culture and became a defender and inheritor of Chinese traditional culture. "Pillars" is also the focus of CCTV's Spring Festival Gala on "Chinese Architecture" after "Chinese Colors" and "Chinese Patterns", once again enriching the creative transformation and innovative expression of China's excellent traditional culture. The program will use CCTV's virtual-real fusion ultra-high-definition production system, adopt "XR+digital twins+VP" fusion shooting, and reproduce the millennium charm and cultural connotation of Chinese ancient buildings by creating an infinitely extended virtual stage space.
The last performance is "Unforgettable Tonight", which will be performed this year by the China Disabled People's Performing Arts Troupe and the Shanghai Rainbow Chamber Choir.
The Shanghai Rainbow Chamber Choir was founded in 2010. In 2016, it became popular on the Internet with hit songs such as "Zhang Shichao, where did you put my house keys last night?" and "Feeling My Body Hollowed Out". During the Spring Festival in 2017, it also went viral on WeChat Moments with the song "Spring Festival Self-Help Guide".
It is worth mentioning that this year's Spring Festival Gala launched barrier-free broadcasts for the visually impaired and the hearing impaired for the first time. Sign language actors used AR virtual technology to place themselves in the Spring Festival Gala studio to "narrate" in sign language, and vertical screen multi-screen packaging simultaneously presented the Spring Festival Gala live and the sign language actors' images, supplemented by AI voice technology to produce subtitles to meet the viewing needs of the hearing-impaired. At the same time, audio was used to create interpretations and expand the background of the Spring Festival Gala programs, allowing the visually impaired to "listen" to the Spring Festival Gala better.
Sign language interpretation
Technological innovation, visual upgrade
As one of the most important cultural events in China, the Spring Festival Gala attracts the attention of Chinese people around the world every year. The continuous innovation of technology and program content makes the Spring Festival Gala a window to showcase the integration of Chinese culture and modern technology. The audience's expectations for the Spring Festival Gala lie not only in its traditional cultural connotations, but also in its breakthroughs and progress in technological innovation!
The 2025 Spring Festival Gala has made significant breakthroughs in technological innovation. The China Media Group actively promotes the integration and innovation of "thought + art + technology", using technologies such as ultra-high definition, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, stereoscopic vision and 3D sound to continuously improve the audio-visual quality and all-media communication effect of the Spring Festival Gala.
For example, this year for the first time, a cloud-based multi-angle shooting system consisting of 30 cameras was deployed on the top of the Spring Festival Gala studio, using the "studio sky surround perspective" to shoot, and using stereoscopic vision AI algorithms to perform real-time 3D point cloud rendering of multi-camera signals to form a 3D video of the Spring Festival Gala. It also used intelligent virtual camera techniques to present images and videos that are difficult to capture with a camera to the audience.
In order to enhance the visual effects of the Spring Festival Gala's song and dance programs, in addition to the XR virtual-reality fusion ultra-high-definition production system, the China Media Group will also use a high-precision artificial intelligence visual tracking system. The system can collect the position and posture data of the actors in real time by identifying the smart beacon devices worn by the actors, allowing virtual special effects to appear in specific locations, bringing a new visual interactive experience to the Spring Festival Gala's song and dance programs.
In addition, the latest achievements of AIGC (artificial intelligence generated content) technology will also be unveiled on the Spring Festival Gala stage. The Year of the Snake Spring Festival Gala will use AIGC technology to enhance stage performance through intelligently generated visual effects, making every frame full of creativity.
At 8 p.m. on January 28, the "2025 Spring Festival Gala" of China Central Radio and Television will be broadcast on CCTV Comprehensive Channel, Variety Channel, Chinese International Channel, National Defense and Military Channel, Children's Channel, Music Channel, Agriculture and Rural Channel, 4K/8K Ultra High Definition Channel and other TV channels.
