Expect music, dance, sand art, delicious street food at the Tauranga Diwali Festival on Saturday.

One Love Charity has successfully hosted three Tauranga Diwali Festivals at the Tauranga Historic with more than 2800 people attending each year, and this year the event has grown even more in popularity.

The annual Diwali festival celebrates South Asia's unique heritage and cultural practices. It is India's most anticipated and celebrated jubilee, being known as the Festival of Lights. It lauds the victory of truth, light and wisdom overcoming the darkness of oppression and ill-intent. This event is about celebrating cultural diversity in our Tauranga region.

One Love Charity have also hosted the Holi Colour Splash, another Tauranga cultural event which has been running for more than five years.

'The Holi and Diwali culture are gaining immense popularity and we feel confident that by holding the Diwali festival we help to build stronger communities by sharing South Asia's unique, colourful traditional and semi-classical/modern art forms like dance and song with our local Kiwi people,” says organiser Bela Reid.

For a gold coin donation at the Historic Village gate, the audience can expect five hours of traditional and modern South Asian music and dance from local and nationally renowned artists, a captivating Ramayan drama performance, informative snippets about the Secrets of Diwali, delicious vegetarian Indian street food, a rangoli art display for people to join in - colourful sand art of the footpath, henna body work, free South Asian-themed face painting, Indian crafts, and plenty of diyas (clay lamps) to paint and display.

The Tauranga Diwali Festival is being held from 4-9pm, Saturday, October 15, at Tauranga Historic Village, 17^th Ave. Gold coin entry.