Not every January sky belongs to Ahmedabad. Across India, Uttarayan and Makar Sankranti have quietly found new homes, in city parks built from reclaimed bamboo, inside tech corridors, on café lawns, resort grounds, heritage precincts and beach promenades. These celebrations don’t try to copy Gujarat’s rooftop madness. They evolve it! Organised, open, often ticketed, sometimes intimate, these kite festivals are about participation, atmosphere and memory-making rather than competition alone. If travel plans fell through this year, these are the places where the sky still shows up.
15 Kite Festivals In India That Capture The Spirit Of The Festival
1. Baansera 2-Day Kite & Culture Festival, New Delhi
Baansera feels like Delhi pausing to breathe. Built almost entirely from bamboo and rising along the Yamuna floodplain, the park hosts a kite festival that leans into meaning rather than noise. Professional flyers choreograph clean, deliberate movements across the sky while families spread out on the grass with simple paper kites. There are workshops on traditional kite forms, storytelling sessions that trace kite flying back through royal courts and wartime signalling, and just enough street food to keep you warm without overwhelming the place. It’s the rare Sankranti event where the setting matters as much as the sky.
Where: Baansera Park, Sarai Kale Khan, New Delhi
When: 16 Jan – 18 Jan (10:00 AM – 6:00 PM)
Cost: Free
2. The Great Indian Kite Festival, Bengaluru
Whitefield isn’t where you expect poetry, but once a year the wind does something right here. This festival runs with precision of clearly marked flying zones, structured competitions, no unsafe manjha, yet never feels clinical. Artisans demonstrate how balance changes with tail length. Children chase fallen kites while serious flyers watch the sky with narrowed eyes. Food trucks ring the edges, and by late afternoon, the light turns golden enough to make even a simple diamond kite look intentional.
Where: Bhoruka Technology Park, Whitefield, Bengaluru
When: 11 Jan (10:00 AM – 7:00 PM)
Cost: ₹199 onwards
3. Makar Sankranti Kite Workshop & Competition, Bengaluru
This one doesn’t pretend to be grand. It’s small by design. Inside a mall, participants build their own kites, paper, sticks, and thread, then step outside to fly what they’ve made. Parents hover while kids learn quickly that symmetry matters in this festival. The competition segment is friendly, brief, and very real. You leave with a kite that’s yours, not bought, and that alone makes it worth attending.
Where: Bhartiya Mall of Bengaluru, Bengaluru
When: 10 Jan (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM)
Cost: ₹199
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4. International Kite & Sweet Festival, Hyderabad
Hyderabad does abundance well, and this festival leans into it unapologetically. The sky fills with kites while the ground fills with food with trays of regional sweets, jaggery-heavy, sesame-rich, sticky in the fingers. Handloom stalls line the walkways. Folk musicians cycle through sets. Families arrive early and leave late. It’s less about watching the sky constantly and more about moving between it and everything else that makes Sankranti feel complete.
Where: Parade Grounds, Secunderabad, Hyderabad
When: 13 Jan – 15 Jan (9:00 AM – 11:00 PM)
Cost: Free
5. Sankranti Kite Festival, Hyderabad
This is Sankranti for people who don’t like crowds but still want the ritual. A few kites at a time, music that never drowns conversation and food meant to be eaten slowly. As the afternoon fades, lanterns appear, and the flying becomes more playful than competitive. No one’s counting wins here. It’s about staying longer than planned.
Where: Cafe Ikigai, Whitefields, Hyderabad
When: 10 Jan – 11 Jan (3:00 PM onwards)
Cost: ₹649
6. Skyburst Sankranti Carnival, Pune
This festival runs like a schedule you don’t need to check. Morning leagues start early and kids’ competitions follow. By evening, the kites glow, they are LED-lit, choreographed and loud in colour if not in sound. It’s theatrical without being overwhelming. Pune families treat it like a full-day outing, leaving and returning as the programming shifts, which is exactly how it’s meant to be used.
Where: TopPlay, Kharadi, Pune
When: 13 Jan – 15 Jan (7:30 AM onwards)
Cost: ₹354
7. Kite Festival At Poona Western Club, Pune
Older, quieter, and intentionally so! The club lawns open up for a single evening where children fly low, adults sit back, and the pace never rushes. Crafts, simple entertainment, and light food complete the day. It feels like Sankranti did before festivals became productions.
Where: The Poona Western Club, Bhugaon, Pune
When: 18 Jan (4:00 PM onwards)
Cost: ₹450
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8. Kai Poche! Kite & Hurda Carnival, Nashik
Here, flying is only half the point. Hurda, roasted green sorghum, anchors the day. Smoke curls up from food stalls while kites move lazily overhead. People eat, fly, return to eat again. The rhythm is rural, seasonal and loud.
Where: Rivercrest Lawns, Nashik
When: 10 Jan – 15 Jan (9:00 AM – 4:00 PM)
Cost: ₹1,100 onwards
9. Ashya Kite Carnival, Near Mumbai
This is Sankranti without logistical stress. It uses lawns instead of rooftops and seating instead of scrambling. Flying happens in waves, with space to pause, eat, talk, and watch. Families come here precisely because it’s controlled, comfortable, and doesn’t demand expertise.
Where: Dhara Resort & Convention
When: 13 Jan – 15 Jan (7:30 AM – 9:30 PM)
Cost: ₹300
10. Kites By The Day, Stars By The Night, Near Mumbai
Wind moves differently near water. Over the Vaitarna backwaters, kites stay up longer, drifting rather than fighting. The day unfolds slowly with flying, meals, interesting conversations, until the sky darkens and the place turns reflective.
Where: Mridur Resort, Vaitarna
Cost: Ticketed
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11. Jaipur Makar Sankranti Kite Celebration, Jaipur
Jaipur doesn’t organise kite flying so much as allow it. The Polo Ground fills with colour while rooftops nearby erupt into friendly chaos. Markets sell paper kites by the stack. The city skyline does the rest. It’s loud and exactly how Sankranti should feel here.
Where: Polo Ground, Jaipur
When: 14 Jan (10:00 AM onwards)
Cost: Free
12. Heritage Kite Flying, Udaipur
Flying here feels ceremonial. Kites rise above lakes, skim palace silhouettes, disappear into clean winter light. Nothing rushes. People come for the view as much as the act itself.
Where: City Palace vicinity, Udaipur
When: 14 Jan (Daylong)
Cost: Free
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13. Desert Kite Festival, Jodhpur
Open land changes everything, and you get not 1, not 2, but 3 days to show your kite-flying prowess. The wind has room. Kites grow larger. Music drifts without echo. This is Sankranti stripped back to elements of sky, sand and colour.
Where: Open Polo Ground, Jodhpur
When: 14 Jan – 16 Jan
Cost: Free
15. Promenade Beach Kite Festival, Pondicherry
Sea breeze does most of the work here. Kites lift easily, hover longer and fall more softly. Cafés spill onto the promenade, and no one’s in a hurry to leave.
Where: Promenade Beach, Pondicherry
When: 14 Jan (Morning – Afternoon)
Cost: Free
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Kite festivals don’t belong to one skyline anymore. What these events show, quietly and clearly, is how the ritual has shifted, out of private rooftops and into shared spaces, shaped by parks, cafés, resorts, beaches and heritage grounds. Some revolve around food, others around craft, wind or setting. But all of them hold on to the same instinct: to look up together, once a year, and let the season announce itself. If Gujarat isn’t on your map this Uttarayan, the sky still is.
Cover Image Courtesy: gujarattourism/X
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