The annual CCTV Spring Festival Gala will be broadcast live by China Central Television at 8 pm on Thursday to celebrate the year's most important traditional Chinese festival.
Friday marks the start of the Year of the Ox, the second in the cycle of 12 Chinese zodiac signs.
The gala will feature a variety of performances, including singing, dancing, acrobatics, comic sketches and traditional Chinese art forms such as Peking Opera and cross-talk.
The four-hour show will also host a gathering of celebrated Chinese artists, pop musicians and movie stars. Through online platforms, international stars will also perform during the gala, including Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Tan Yuanyuan, principal dancer of the San Francisco Ballet.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, audience capacity at the live broadcasting venue will be limited, and audience members will be required to wear face masks, CCTV said at a news conference in Beijing on Sunday.
Chen Linchun, the director of this year's gala, said some of the performances will revolve around issues such as the fight against the pandemic, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the 2022 Winter Olympics and the country's eradication of absolute poverty.
"The gala is about reviewing the past year and celebrating the coming new year," he said. "We've been through a tough year during the pandemic and we want to offer the audience a gala that delivers the messages of love, hope and comfort."
Chen said this year's Spring Festival will be very special because many people have been encouraged to stay where they are during the holiday to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Watching the gala has been a national tradition since 1983, becoming widely considered "an important dish" of Lunar New Year's Eve dinner.
This year's show will feature the latest technology, including LED displays and virtual reality, and it will be broadcast live with 8K ultra-high-definition technology for the first time.
It will also be streamed online.