It’s not an exaggeration to call Mid-Autumn Festival the world’s largest full moon party. Even Labubu, the wildly popular Pop Mart toy, has been known to celebrate the event.

Falling on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the festival is marked primarily across East and Southeast Asia as a night for families to gather, enjoy the harvest, light lanterns and admire what’s believed to be the roundest moon of the year.

In 2025, the Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival, is celebrated on October 6. You can count on plenty of mooncakes, pomelos and more moon-connected essentials as part of traditions marking the ancient holiday.

Here’s what you need to know about the festival and a few tips on how to join the fun.

What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?

Mid-Autumn Festival became an official celebration in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) but there isn’t one single answer to the question of when and how the annual event began.

Many believe the fete was first mentioned in the “Book of Rites,” a Confucius classic on bureaucracy and rituals written more than 2,400 years ago.

It was described as a day for emperors to celebrate the year’s harvest by giving offerings to the moon and hosting a great feast.

Today, the Mid-Autumn Festival is an incredibly important family gathering — it’s when “people and the moon reunite to form a full circle,” as an old saying goes.

The new hybrid working norm in the UK: How many days in the office?

In 2025 through August, 85% of UK job postings mentioned a hybrid schedule requiring at least two days a week in the office, compared with 65% in 2022, according to Indeed.

The number of in-office days in hybrid roles shifted significantly between 2022 and 2025. One-day requirements fell from 35% in 2022, to 15% in 2025. Two days rose from 48% in 2022, to 56% in 2025. Three days increased from 16% in 2022, to 25% in 2025.

Four days reached 4% in 2025, up from 1% in 2022.

“Employers are tightening these hybrid arrangements, requiring more frequent office attendance than before,” said Jack Kennedy, Indeed’s senior economist.

The figures show that two days in the office is the most common hybrid pattern, accounting for 56% in 2025. Together, two and three days make up 81% of hybrid roles.

Occupation matters in hybrid work

The type of job a worker has plays a key role in the number of in-office days for hybrid positions in the UK. Accounting, human resources, and software development have the highest average minimum in-office requirements, while social sciences and architecture jobs require relatively few, according to Indeed.

On average in 2025, the occupation with the highest number of required office days is accounting (2.4 days), followed by human resources (2.3 days) and IT infrastructure, operations & support (2.3 days).

Software development roles

Almost half (48%) of UK software development jobs mention remote or hybrid work, the highest share among all occupations tracked by Indeed. However, these jobs now require an average of 2.3 days in the office, up 0.6 days over the past two years. Indeed notes this as surprising for an industry long seen as relatively remote-friendly.

“The increase in required office days could reflect employers wielding more leverage in a subdued market for tech talent, and/or wanting to promote greater in-person collaboration,” Kennedy explained in an Indeed blog post.

Occupations with fewer in-office days on average include social science and architecture, both at 1.6 days.

UK postings mentioning remote and hybrid work

The share of UK postings mentioning ‘remote and/or hybrid work’ has remained fairly stable at around 15% for several months, close to all-time highs. This is significantly lower than the ONS figures because they measure different indicators. Indeed’s data is based on job postings from its platform, while ONS reflects the actual workforce in the country.

“Several years after the pandemic-driven shift to remote work, hybrid arrangements remain in flux, and there remains substantial variation in employer policies,” Jack Kennedy noted.

He also pointed out that market conditions continue to play a role. With the current softness in the labour market, employers may feel they have the upper hand, leading some to push for greater on-site attendance.

According to the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), the UK has the highest rate of remote working among 18 European countries, with employees averaging 1.8 days a week at home. More broadly, this places the UK second out of 40 nations.1

This could be Taylor Swift’s most exciting era yet, if that were at all possible.

Not only is she newly engaged to professional football player Travis Kelce, but she’s scheduled to drop her 12th studio album on Friday.

And while the new record, titled “The Life of a Showgirl,” isn’t her 13th (which of course is her favorite number), it is one of her most eagerly awaited albums to date for several reasons.

“Obviously in 2023 and 2024, she was on tour nonstop, traveled the world, got the new boyfriend. It was kind of very big years,” Swift expert and sociology scholar Georgia Carroll told CNN. (Not to mention, the industrious superstar managed to also release her previous studio album – nay, a double album, titled “The Tortured Poets Department” – in April of last year.) “So everybody was a bit like, ‘Well, surely she hasn’t had time to make us new music. Like, let’s give her a year to rest.’”

“So then for her to come out and be like, ‘Hey, surprise, I wrote this entire album while I was on the Eras Tour. Like on my off weekends, I would pop off to Europe to record it and now I have this new 12-song album that’s all about my life on the tour, my life with Travis.’ And announcing it on the (“New Heights”) podcast with Travis and (his brother) Jason in that long-form interview, the likes of which we haven’t received from Taylor basically ever, is amazing,” Carroll added.

Let it never be said that Taylor Alison Swift doesn’t strive to be amazing.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during “The Eras Tour” at NRG Stadium on April 21, 2023 in Houston, Texas.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during “The Eras Tour” at NRG Stadium on April 21, 2023 in Houston, Texas.
Bob Levey/TAS23/Getty Images

Toby Koenigsberg, a music professor at the University of Oregon, told CNN that “we can view this album as a sort of a pivot point for her, and pivot points in her discography are often the most consequential and important.”

Koenigsberg gave several reasons for that point. “First and obviously, she’s at a pivotal moment in her life, with her engagement and entering a new life phase,” he said. “And as we know, her music reflects what’s going on in her life in various ways.”

Swift has demonstrated this time and again in the past, and this go-round looks to be no different.

During her August appearance on her man’s “New Heights” podcast, she revealed that the album will pull back the curtain on her life during the Eras Tour, which she declared was “the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place.” The record-breaking behemoth of a world tour lasted from March 2023 until December 2024.

Not that we haven’t gotten the “in love” era of Swift before, or even the “working hard” Swift. But never have we gotten Swift launching an album while sharing so much intimacy sitting next to her then-boyfriend as we did with her on the Kelce brothers’ podcast.
Jason Kelce, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift on “New Heights” in August.
Jason Kelce, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift on “New Heights” in August.
New Heights

It was a cornucopia of thoughtful quotes (“I’m in the business of human emotion”), life advice (“Think of your energy as if it’s expensive, as if it’s like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it”) and bread puns (we may never forget “It’s a loaf story, baby just say yeast”).

That mix of undeniable star power plus approachable charm plus regular person energy is part of how she’s garnered such a devoted fanbase, including Carroll who is based in Sydney, Australia and became a Swiftie in 2008 when at the age of 14 she heard the singer’s music for the first time.

A decade later, Carroll incorporated the Swift fandom into her academic studies, and she now holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Sydney and is ideally suited to speak to how the superstar singer has not only held on to her fanbase for decades, but capitalized on and grown it.
Taylor Swift fans, also known as “Swifties,” swap friendship bracelets outside Accor Stadium for Swift’s first Sydney concert on February 23, 2024 in Sydney, Australia.
Taylor Swift fans, also known as “Swifties,” swap friendship bracelets outside Accor Stadium for Swift’s first Sydney concert on February 23, 2024 in Sydney, Australia.
Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

“Right now, she’s the most famous person in the world. She’s a billionaire, she’s engaged to one of the biggest football players in the world, that even here in Australia, people are huge fans of Travis,” Carroll said. “She’s not relatable in any sense on paper, but with her music she has this amazing ability to just cut to the heart of what it means to be human in a lot of ways.”

Swift also knows what it means to overdeliver for the people who got you to where you are, which is why in addition to the new music coming Friday, she’s also hitting theaters over the weekend with the film “Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” which has already raked in millions in pre-sale tickets.

To quote the song title for the hit she wrote under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg with ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris, this is what you came for.