Families packed into Block15 near Jack London Square this weekend for Oakland's fourth annual Diwali festival, a free celebration of food, music and dance that organizers say has grown into one of the city's bigger cultural draws. By 6 p.m. a line had already formed at the door, with the event running until 10 p.m. Saturday night, according to NBC Bay Area.
The gathering, which welcomed families from across the Bay Area and people of all backgrounds, was free to attendees, including both the food and the entertainment, according to NBC Bay Area. The festival is organized by Oakland District 4 City Council Member Janani Ramachandran, whom the station described as the first South Asian elected to office in the city of Oakland.
Ramachandran said the event is meant to be a welcoming space for anyone who celebrates Diwali or similar holidays, blending tradition with local flavor. She told the station the festival honors the cultural and spiritual roots of the holiday and brings the Oakland spice and excitement into that. Last year's festival drew around 1,200 attendees, she said, a mark organizers appeared on track to approach again this year given the early crowd at the door.
A Festival With Growing Roots
This year's gathering builds on celebrations that have been running in Oakland for several years. As reported by Visit Oakland, over the past two years, Oakland Diwali brought together over a thousand people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds from across the Bay Area, though it does not specify whether that figure reflects a single year or a combined total across events. A 2023 report from CBS San Francisco on an earlier Oakland Diwali gathering described children and adults from different cultures coming together in Oakland, with that celebration featuring a performance from Ramachandran alongside music from UC Berkeley's Bollywood dance group.
The 2025 edition of the party was also free and drew hundreds of attendees, according to organizers cited in reporting from Oaklandside. That same Oaklandside report identified the event's organizing body as Tiger Arts, a nonprofit created last February by Ramachandran, who currently serves as the group's president.
Nonprofit Funding Questions Surfaced Separately
Oaklandside's reporting also noted that Ramachandran had disclosed soliciting $5,000 each from Waste Management and Kaiser Permanente to support Tiger Arts, the nonprofit behind the Diwali celebrations. That disclosure was reported separately from the festival coverage itself and does not change the scope or details of this year's event at Block15.
For now, the festival's footprint continues to expand each year, with organizers pointing to steady attendance growth and a crowd that was already lining up well before the doors opened this time around.
