Shows, Sightings & a CherryBlast! More On The 2016 Cherry Blossom Festival

On March 20, the National Cherry Blossom Festival officially returns to Washington, DC and will last until April 17. With 100 performances, food, films, and a tea ceremony, this is a weeks-long event that shouldn’t be missed. For the people who have been to the festival before, the new feature Cherry Blast! will likely attract interest and curiosity. According to Gregory A. O’Dell, president and CEO of Events DC, this new feature will showcase Japanese pop culture.

The stars of the show, the cherry blossoms, will be at their peak between March 31 and April 3, according to Gay Vietzke, superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks. She also said that during that peak period, 70 percent of the cherry blossoms will appear – the rest of the blossoms will appear either before or after the peak season.

O’Dell said that the National Cherry Blossom Festival also impacts normal life in DC. Besides the festival marking “the official start of springtime,” the DC economy gets a boost while visitors stay in hotels and dine at restaurants. Did You Know?!: He also said that all eight wards in Washington, DC have cherry trees planted on their respective grounds.

Using public transportation and Capital Bikeshare to get to the festival are strongly recommended – with the festival attracting more than one million visitors from the United States and abroad, navigating extremely congested roads with a car is a daunting task.