Borneo Cultural Festival

The tradition & historical record

Borneo Cultural Festival, abbreviated as BCF, is an annual festival of food, music, and dance that places a focus on cultural diversity of Borneo. The festival is held in Sibu, one of the major towns in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia, and was first organised in 2002. The festival regularly takes place in July, and is organised by the Sibu Municipal Council (SMC). ¹

BCF was originally known as Pesta Sibu before going through several name changes, such as Millennium Celebration and Borneo Tribal Extravaganza. Since 2005, BCF is held by Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) in July every year at Sibu Town Square, for a period of 10 days. It is a celebration of traditional music, dances, contests, beauty pageant, food stalls, fun fairs, and product exhibitions. There are 3 separate stages for Iban, Chinese, and Malay performances. It draws around 20,000 people every year. Besides cultural performances, Kumang Borneo Dayak Cultural Festival- a traditional beauty pageant- are held at the Dayak stage of BCF. Beginning 2023 edition, an International Night will be added on top of three traditional signature nights, namely Chinese Night, Malay/Melanau Night and Dayak Night. ¹

BCF was stopped briefly in 2011 before it was resumed in 2012. The festival also went on a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. ¹

Historically, the venue of the main event will be held in Sibu town square so as the trade fair and the exhibition will be held on the second phase of the town square. Usually the main town square which is located next to Wisma Sanyan will be utilised by the stages and food stalls. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Borneo Cultural Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Borneo Cultural Festival is cultural event in Borneo, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²