Long Tong Festival (crop praying festival) is one of the biggest and most unique traditional festivals of the Tay people held at the beginning of the new year. The festival is held on the full moon day of the first lunar month every year with the wish of the villagers, praying for favorable weather, prosperity, and happiness for all people.
Long Tong Festival is the most important festival at the beginning of the new year, closely associated with the Tay people's agriculture. The festival consists of a ceremony and a festival, usually held outdoors, on a large field or in the central courtyard of the locality. The main ceremony is to worship heaven, earth and gods, praying for favorable weather, national peace and people's peace. The Tay people carefully prepare the offering tray with local products such as: pig's head, sticky rice, chicken, fruits, and candies. In particular, an indispensable thing on the offering tray is two pairs of cones made of colored fabric, stuffed with sand or cotton, with colorful tassels.
The host of the Long Tong festival is Mr. Thai Dinh (the person in charge of the communal house) or the person in charge of worshiping the God of Agriculture in the village. All families attending the festival bring offerings to worship the God of Earth, the God of Mountain, the God of Agriculture and the Thanh Hoang. The offering tray usually includes sticky rice, pork, white wine and cakes.

In the ceremony, the "Tich Dien" ritual is one of the important procedures that cannot be ignored. The person performing this ritual is usually a prestigious person in the community, a village elder, a village chief, loved and trusted by the people. Accordingly, they will plow the first furrow in the field as a sign of good luck, creating favorable conditions for the whole crop of the villagers, opening the life of farmers at the beginning of the new year.
In some large-scale Long Tong festivals, the host also organizes a ceremony to sacrifice three animals (buffalo, pig, chicken or pig, goat, chicken). On the field, the altar to the God of Agriculture and other gods is set up outdoors. The Long Tong festival begins when gongs and drums sound, the elders and young men carry the God of Agriculture and the City God from the communal house to the field, and the families carry the feast, which is set up on the festival ground. The host of the Long Tong festival recites a mo song to worship the gods and then announces the breaking of the feast. Any family that has a sumptuous feast and invites many festival guests to enjoy their feast is considered lucky for the whole year. In some places, the elders are invited to enjoy the feast, with young men and women following them to dance and sing, wishing each family all the best. After the feast, everyone continued to sing and participate in folk games such as: throwing the ball, tug of war, pushing the stick, spinning top, swinging, unicorn dance, lion dance, martial arts dance, spear dance, blindfolded goat catching, love song (luan singing), local product contest, chess, etc.
The festival took place with many unique and attractive cultural, artistic, physical education and sports activities, in which throwing the ball is the most fun game with the most participants. The Tay people believe that in the Long Tong festival, if someone can throw the five-colored ball and pierce the bull's-eye on the pole, then the village will have a prosperous year.