However, after The Xinhai Revolution (1911), which overthrew the Qing Dynasty and with it, the longstanding feudal system, new-style apartment stores appeared in Beijing, which attracted lots of Beijing citizens for its goods varieties and new facilities like café shops, restaurants, poolrooms, and so on. This, alongside the continuous wars and the unstable social conditions, caused less and less people to go to the temple fairs, hence leading to the decline of the temple fairs in old Beijing.

The 1985 Spring Festival saw the revival of temple fairs in Beijing. The first contemporary cultural temple fair was held at the Temple of Earth. Since then, the tradition of temple fairs has come back with renewed vigor with the annual fairs at Longtanhu Park, the Grand View Garden, Lake Lianhua, and the Old Summer Palace during the Spring Festival. The Baiyun, Dongyue, Tanzhe, and Changdian temples also restored their temple fairs.

 Forms of temple fairs in old Beijing

Temple fairs in old Beijing could be categorized into four types:

The first type consisted of temple fairs based on pilgrimage and other religious activities. On the day of sacrifice, temples were opened to Buddhists for their pilgrimages. Business activities sometimes took place, yet only as an appendant to the religious activities. Temples usually opened on the 1st and 15th of every month of the lunar calendar.

Religious activities were often the themes of these temple fairs. For instance, Lama Exorcising, a religious rite at lamaseries, was one of the unique activities at temple fairs. The Lama would play as evil spirits, while the Da Lama (Lama at a higher level) would hold special instruments to beat the evil spirits for "exorcism." Another example was the City God on Tour of Inspection. Temples of City God (Chenghuang temples) in Dongcheng, Xicheng, and Daxing often held such religious activities.

The second type were temple fairs held as spring outings in the name of Buddhism . Spring outings were the main objective of these temple fairs, which were mostly visited by women. Temple fairs at the Baiyun Temple (Temple of White Clouds) and the Pantaogong Temple (Peach of Immortality Palace) were examples.

The third type of temple fairs came in the form of markets inside or outside temples. Business activities replaced religious activities in this type of temple fairs. Temple fairs at the Longfu and Huguo temples held several fairs a month, which served as markets for daily necessities. Housewives in old Beijing used to shop at temple fairs because of the large variety and low price of the goods.

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