How to complete the Genshin Impact Irodori Festival event and get Xingqiu

The new version of Genshin Impact feels like it peaked pretty early this time around. We got to venture into the amazing new Chasm region in search of adventure, Ayato finally arrived alongside the Venti rerun, and the Irodori Festival event is already underway with plenty of rewards on offer.

One such reward is the ability to invite Hydro four-star, Xingqiu, to your party. Since he's one of Genshin's greatest support characters, it's definitely worth taking the time to complete the festival’s events. But what exactly is the Irodori Festival? Well, it's all about cultural exchange, as characters from Mondstadt and Liyue come to swap artistic tips, or as with Klee, blow stuff up.

You'll also be seeing Yae Miko, Kazuha, Arataki Itto, Thoma, and even Albedo, who's been roused from his mountainside cave to come and paint The Five Kasen, a group of ancient poets that the festival is inspired by. In this Genshin Impact Irodori Festival guide, I'll go through each event, and what you need to do to grab Xingqiu for yourself.

Hues of the Violet Garden event

Similar to the Lantern Rite in Liyue, you'll be completing quests and events in order to invite Xingqiu to your party and get a load of other rewards. The structure of this event is far more streamlined and as you complete each of its five quests, you unlock a separate event and Irodori Anecdote sidequest to pursue.

The Moon and Stars Inscribe

After completing the first quest, you'll unlock this poetry/photography event. You're tasked with taking four pictures based on a certain theme in order to help complete a poem. This is probably the trickiest event, but it's still pretty simple, just make sure to use the capture button in the menu to take pictures rather than your Kamera gadget, as that doesn't count for some reason. Here are the three themes and what you need to photograph:

• Nostalgia: For this one, you have to snapshot four Inazuma specialties, which basically means four world materials you'd use to ascend Inazuma characters, such as Sakura Blooms, Naku Weeds, Sango Pearls, etc. The quickest way is probably to head to Narukami Shrine to photograph a Sakura Bloom, Naku wéed, and Onikabuto, then teleport to Seirai for an Amakumo Fruit.
• Friendship: Inazuma animals are the theme for this one, and it's very easy. Head down the pier in Ritou to take a picture of the fish, then head east onto the sand to photograph two types of crab and one of the birds there. If you miss any of them, you can always head up to the Narukami Shrine and take a pic of the fox that sits by the path.
• Parting: This one is Mondstadt specialities. I tried to be clever and head to Flora to photograph her flowers, but they, unfortunately, don't count. Still, you can grab a picture of the Philomena Mushrooms on buildings in Mondstadt, the Dandelions outside the city, and the Small Lamp Grass or Calla Lily near Starfell Lake.

Theater Mechanicus

We're all pretty familiar with the Theater Mechanicus tower defense mini-game now, but this newest version is a lot more focused than its predecessors. It gives you a smaller selection of towers to use, as well as Fortune Sticks and Mystic Sticks, which are used to buff towers and character abilities respectively. It's about elemental tower combos so bring your best Anemo characters like Jean and Venti, to gather foes together for maximum effect or to blow them off ledges.

Clash of Lone Blades

This fighting event on an island north of Ritou is all about parrying, similar to Beidou or Yun Jin's skills. The kicker is you aren't allowed to use your elemental burst or skill, and you have to play as the Traveler. Parrying an opponent's attack using your skill will let you deal a critical hit, but if they are performing a Honed Technique, your parry will deal a big chunk of damage. The parry timing is pretty generous, to be honest. That said, not all of the four foes have been revealed yet.

Floral Courtyard

This mini-game is pretty reminiscent of that Dreams of Bloom flower-arranging event that appeared not so long ago. As with the poetry, you are given a theme and an arrangement that you have to replicate. It's actually pretty difficult to get right in the time limit due to the varying flower lengths, but once the time runs out it just tells you the correct solution anyway. There aren't any extra rewards for doing it within the time limit, so this is a super easy one to complete.

How to get Xingqiu in the Irodori Festival event

As with the Lantern Rite free character, you have the opportunity to grab Xingqiu for free by completing events at the festival. There are four conditions to fulfill in order to invite him:

• Complete the “Parting” themed poem.
• Obtain a score of 1,500 in Springtide Advent: Show of Force.
• Achieve victory in "Versus the Mightiest Warrior!" on Serious difficulty or higher.
• Complete the fourth "floral theme".

This basically means you'll need to fully complete The Moon and Stars Inscribe event, and the final stages of Theater Mechanicus, Clash of Lone Blades, and Floral Courtyard. At least in terms of Theater Mechanicus, you don't have to complete the previous stages to unlock other ones, though it's unclear whether that's the case for the other two events, since at the time of writing this they've yet to be fully released.

You'll also have to complete the four main Legends of the Kasen quests in order to unlock these events, to begin with. Once all is done, send an invitation to Xingqiu in the event menu to add the Hydro sword-wielder to your roster.

And that's everything you need to know about the Genshin Impact Irodori Festival event!