Auto Shanghai 2025, one of the world's largest car exhibitions, is expected to attract some 1.3 million visitors, unleashing consumption potential and boosting the city's economic growth as the Chinese financial hub strives to become an international convention and exhibition capital.
The arrival of the five-day May Day holiday brought an even larger number of visitors to Shanghai to join the 10-day event from April 23 to May 2.
"I came to see cars, their appearance and their development," said a Chinese visitor.
"I'm coming here to see what are the trends and also talk to the companies to see if they're open and interested in some expansion plans to Europe," said an overseas visitor.
"It's great. It's fantastic. Shanghai is a beautiful city and it's very impressive here," said another foreign visitor.
Many international auto makers choose this platform for debuts of their most important products.
Large exhibitions like the Shanghai auto show have become an important platform for driving a city's economic growth.
According to the annual report on China's exhibition industry released by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, China held over 3,800 economic and trade exhibitions in 2024.
The eastern region, given its vibrancy of economy, organized the highest number, accounting for 67.3 percent of the country's total.
"First, exhibitions will create revenue for the exhibition centers and companies, including the rental of venues, the construction of booths and the rental of equipment, etc. Second, exhibitions, like the auto show we saw this time, will bring together a large number of exhibitors, buyers, and visitors, so it actually forms a huge consumer crowd in the city, stimulating the city's consumer market," said Lao Guoling, a researcher of the Chinese Modernization Institute under Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
To further unleash consumption potential, organizers have released vouchers exclusively designed for visitors attending the Shanghai auto show. The city government also extended its car trade-in program.
"We will further implement car trade-in policies and provide policy support for replacing old cars with license plates from outside of the city. The same subsidies will apply to those who trade in used cars not registered in Shanghai as Shanghai plates," said Liu Min, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce.
Shanghai has vowed to become the center for international exhibitions. The city held almost 900 exhibition last year, and many, including the Shanghai auto show, have earned a great reputation around the world.
"We can do a lot more with 'exhibition plus', for example, exhibition plus tourism to create distinctive travel routes; exhibition plus business, such as the sales and discounts around the auto show; exhibition plus sports, exhibition plus culture, and exhibition plus technology. Consumption potential will be further unleashed by integrating the exhibition industry with other sectors," said Lao.
Shanghai auto show unleashes consumption potential
China Media Group (CMG) on Wednesday unveiled some of the highlights of its much-anticipated 2026 Spring Festival Gala, including officially announcing its lineup of hosts and revealing more about the technological innovations used to create this year's grand show.
Recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's most-watched TV program, the hours-long entertainment extravaganza will again feature a variety of colorful performances and be broadcast on the eve of the Chinese New Year, which this year falls on Feb. 17, ushering in the Year of the Horse.
This year's gala will feature a range of sci-tech innovations, adding a new dimension to the long-running television spectacle. Among these, a group of embodied robots will once again grace the Spring Festival Gala stage after their memorable appearance in last year's edition.
The overall look and feel of the gala has also been upgraded with the adoption of the CMG Media GPT 2.0 AI production platform, which is being used for the first time in content production, significantly improving the show's quality and efficiency through image generation and the creation of hyper-realistic digital humans.
Meanwhile, Vivid Audio-Visual Technology Standards, a program developed by the CMG's State Key Laboratory of Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) Communication and Presentation, is also being fully applied and integrated across all multimedia and broadcast platforms screening the gala.
The content of this year's show draws inspiration from the rich treasure trove of traditional Chinese culture and incorporates elements from various innovative and popular art forms, creating a cultural feast designed to resonate closely with people's lives.
The gala features a carefully curated line-up of performances, including a host of stirring songs and dazzling dances, enchanting operas, comedic sketches, magic shows and a number of creative fusion performances, all of which cultivate the strong festive atmosphere and convey a joyful and auspicious message as people prepare to welcome the Chinese New Year.
Six experienced hosts -- Ren Luyu, Sa Beining, Neghmet Raxman, Long Yang, Ma Fanshu, and Liu Xinyue -- will greet global audiences and guide them through the night from the main stage at the CMG's headquarters in Beijing, while another eight anchors will welcome viewers to the four sub-venues located across China, a tradition that was first introduced in 2016 to take the gala to new locations each year.
This year's four sub-venues include Harbin, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang in northeast China known as the "ice city", Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang, which has been dubbed "the world's supermarket", Hefei, the provincial capital of the eastern Anhui Province which has emerged as a hub for sci-tech innovation, and Yibin in the southwestern Sichuan Province, known for its ancient architecture and picturesque scenery along the banks of the Yangtze River.
As for the lineup of hosts at these sites, Yang Fan and Jiang Duo will helm the show from Harbin, Guo Ruotian and He Chuan will host from the Yiwu sub-venue, Zhu Xun and Bai Yu will join the celebrations in Hefei, while Zhang Tao and Wang Chuhan will lead the program in Yibin.
Modern innovations and creative fusion programs that will wow gala audiences draw inspiration from traditional culture, incorporating dance, opera, and singing into a new wave of enhanced performances.
By leveraging AI-generated imagery and real-stage expansion technology, these innovations enable even more spectacular visual effects, which are sure to thrill viewers.
Artists from various countries will appear on the stage of this year's gala, showcasing the harmonious integration of diverse civilizations through a range of captivating singing and dancing performances.
Aside from artists and stars, the Spring Festival Gala stage has long been open to people from all walks of life, ensuring that their contributions to everyday life are seen and remembered.
Champions of the WorldSkills Competition -- an international event that spotlights vocational skills -- will also appear, showcasing the spirit of craftsmanship defined by dedication, meticulousness, and the pursuit of excellence.
Meanwhile, a talented choir of local villagers and farmers from the rural Dazhanchang Town of Zhongwei City in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region will also sing melodies that tell the stories of their lives in one of China's agricultural heartlands.
At a press conference unveiling the gala lineup in Beijing on Wednesday, Liu Xiaomei, who works in the canteen of Yanbian University in northeast China and has been invited to participate in the gala, presented a specially created "limited edition" Spring Festival dish, delivering a heartwarming New Year's greeting.
It was also noted at the press conference that the gala's advanced 8K production uses entirely domestically produced equipment. For the first time, its vertical-screen broadcasts will apply CMG's latest Network Video Infrastructure (NVI) multimedia UHD production and broadcasting technology, creating an immersive viewing experience for audiences.
The 3D Vivid Audio Technology will also enable a full-link presentation, from collection and production to broadcasting, for the first time, aiming to restore the stunning sound effects in a panoramic way.
Furthermore, an accessible version of the gala will be live-streamed for the first time on CCTV Channel 15, featuring sign language performances and AI-generated subtitles, allowing more people with hearing impairments to fully enjoy the show as it unfolds.
CMG's artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) real-scene special effects technology is also set to make its debut with an innovative first application at this year's gala, creating a stunning interactive spectacle during the show.
The gala will be aired across multiple platforms, including CMG's 4K UHD channel, its 8K UHD channel, and various new media platforms, when it gets underway at 20:00 Beijing time on Feb. 16.
Internationally, the English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian-language channels of the China Global Television Network (CGTN), along with 85 foreign language communication platforms, will cooperate with more than 3,300 overseas media outlets in over 200 countries and regions around the world to broadcast and report on the gala.
The Spring Festival Gala, also known as "Chunwan" in Chinese, has been a major cultural symbol of the Chinese New Year celebrations in China since its debut in 1983. Every Chinese New Year's Eve, families and friends across the country gather to enjoy a variety show featuring songs, dances, comic sketches, operas, folk arts, and other performances.
The 2026 Chinese New Year ushers in the Year of the Horse, the seventh animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac.
CMG unveils highlights of upcoming 2026 Spring Festival Gala
