Magha Saptami also known as the Chandrabhaga Mela is the most popular festival that falls in the month of February. This day is specifically set aside for the worship of the Sun God at Konark.Although the temple is reduce to rubble, even today thousands of pilgrims gather at Konark annually on the Magha Sukla Saptami, the day of Spring Festivals, to commemorate the new birth of the Sun God. When the Sun has returned to its northern course, they amass before sunrise to bathe in the sacred Chandrabhaga River and in the nearby sea. When the Sun God surfaces from the ocean in the Agni Kona, the southeastern corner of the horizon, he is worshipped with silent prayers or bellows of happiness, and several in their elation envisage him rising from the water in his incandescent chariot drawn by seven fiery horses. Later they walk one and a half mile toward the temple to circumambulate the shrine and to worship the Navagraha stone, which was initially over the eastern doorway and is now set up in a miniature shed outside the compound. When the spiritual duties are executed, they spend the rest of the day cooking, eating and merrymaking and by nightfall, disperse homeward. Some of the people arrive on foot from distant places and eventually spend an entire month on the road before reaching the destination. The second largest festival in Orissa, following the Car Festival of Puri, it is the most colourful and pulsating festival noted.
Another colourful and the most peculiar festival is the Konark Dance Festival. It is a festival celebrating classical dance. Held from 1st to 5th December every year in the amphitheater, it is one of the most exhilarating dance events of the country. The festival has implicit a kind of distinguishing connotation and significance of the timely efforts it has made towards the restoration, conservation and persistence of exclusive temple dance tradition of Orissa. The festive nights serve the indispensable purpose of highlighting an important facet of Indian`s compound culture and offer the audience a sumptuous feast for the eyes and ears alike. As a tribute to the majestic monument, prominent classical dancers of India flock every year during the dance festival to present live performance. The dance is performed on the Open Air Auditorium set amidst the casuarinas grave with the Sun Temple, a World Heritage Monument, at the backdrop. When the sun sets in the horizon and the stars appear in the sky, the open-air-auditorium echo with the beats of Raga and Tala that seal the air. The stage for the New Millennium Fete is then set to glow in immaculate splendor of the much admired Odissi, Bharat Natyam, Manipuri, Kathak and Chhow Dance- a sumptuous feast for the eyes and ears.
