What’s on in Hong Kong City

Chinese New Year

10 — 13 February 2024

Wan Chai Harbour front; parade route in Tsim Sha Tsui

When it comes to Chinese New Year celebrations, nobody does it better than Hong Kong. The streets are jammed with dragon dancers, street performers and illuminated floats. Doors are hung with colourful messages of good fortune and lights are draped over all the city's skyscrapers.

Markets and temples become magical places filled with flowers, incense and celebration. The highlight of the festivities is the glittering night parade that is complemented by special lighting effects and concluded by traditional fireworks over the harbour, which is said to scare away demons and ensure good luck.

Chinese New Year is a truly special time to visit Hong Kong and allows visitors to see the city at its most glittering, vibrant and colourful. Hong Kong's celebrations run for much longer than the three days usually set aside for Chinese New Year on official calendars.

Website www.discoverhongkong.com

Hong Kong Arts Festival

22 February — 28 March 2024

As a major international arts festival and the city's premier arts event of the year, the Hong Kong Arts Festival presents a fabulous assortment of music, theatre, dance and a wide range of creative visual arts by top international and local performers. The festival is renowned for the richness and diversity of its programme, ranging from classic entertainment to modern and innovative forms of performing arts.

The festival is opened with the Piazza Party, which is a special open-air extravaganza of music, dancing and free entertainment. The Hong Kong Arts Festival also sees unofficial performances spring up all over the city, with street musicians and performers adding to the atmosphere, and smaller art and theatre venues contributing their own artistic gems.

For lovers of the arts this festival is an exciting international event showcasing some of the very best that the world, and especially Hong Kong, has to offer.

Website www.hk.artsfestival.org

Dragon Boat Festival (Tuen Ng)

10 June 2024

Victoria Harbour and other venues in the New Territories.

The Dragon Boat festival commemorates the death of a national hero, Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in protest against the corrupt rulers of the 3rd century. Legend has it that the villagers threw rice dumplings into the river and beat drums to scare the fish away from his body in an attempt to rescue him. There are many variations of this myth but the main festival activities today bring to mind the event.

Rice dumplings are eaten and teams of local and international racers compete in fast and furious dragon boat races to the pounding of drums, as well as competing in various other water-based activities. The elaborately carved, brightly painted dragon boats are the highlight of the festivities, combining heritage, sport and spectacle. It has become quite a prestigious sporting event and teams come from foreign countries and clubs to compete.

Recently the event attracted nearly 5,000 athletes, representing 180 clubs and 20 countries. The Dragon Boat Festival is also a huge party and the Victoria Harbour event attracts around 400,000 spectators all intent on a good time. The festivities in Victoria Harbour are the main event in Hong Kong, but the festival is celebrated all over China and some races are held in rivers in the New Territories as well.

Website www.discoverhongkong.com

Mid-Autumn Festival

18 September 2024

One of the major festivals celebrated in Hong Kong, the Moon Festival is also one of the most widely celebrated festivals for Chinese all over the world, and is traditionally a time for family reunions. At this time of year the moon is thought to be the biggest, brightest and most beautiful, and to celebrate this sighting colourful lanterns in a variety of traditional shapes are lit and all open spaces and hilltops are crowded with families and bright lanterns, watching the full moon rise and eating traditional sweet moon cakes.

As with many Chinese celebrations there are numerous ancient myths and legends to explain the festival. In Hong Kong the traditional ceremony retains its charm but the city also adds its own modern, neon touches to festivities, with light and laser shows and impressive exhibits. Moonlight cruises in Victoria Harbour are a popular Moon Festival activity and a delightful way to experience the bright lights and floating lanterns.

Hungry Ghost Festival (Yue Lan)

18 August 2024

Various. Popular venues are King George V Memorial Park, Kowloon and Moreton Terrace Playground, Causeway Bay

It's believed that the gates of the underworld open for a month, once a year, and the discontented and vengeful ghosts of those who died without proper funeral rites, who met a violent death, or whose living relatives neglected their after-life spirits, roam the earth looking to satisfy their hunger for attention and peace. The purpose of the festival is to prevent these ghosts from inflicting harm on the living in order to gratify their needs.

Elaborate religious parades with food offerings fill the streets, and roadside fires are built to burn gifts of money and crafted paper objects such as cars or furniture to appease the wandering ghosts. Various types of entertainment also take place to keep them happy.

The festival's origins are similar to Halloween but the Chinese culture of ancestor worship makes it a far more personal festival in some ways; families often leave out food for their lost loved ones. One of the main highlights of the festival is the Chinese opera. Operas in honour of the dead, showcasing their great deeds in life, are performed all over the city.

Hong Kong Sevens

5 — 7 April 2024

Hong Kong Stadium, Causeway Bay

The Hong Kong Sevens is one of the biggest sporting events in the city and one of the most exciting rugby events on the international calendar. Top national teams compete in this famed event, while enthusiastic spectators party it up in the stands, particularly in the legendary South Stand where the music blares and the beer flows among the outrageously dressed fans intent on enjoying the rugby as well as having a good time.

All the world's best rugby nations compete in the event and the competition is furiously contested. The games are short (15 minutes long) and fast, and are quite different to regular rugby matches as the atmosphere for spectators is more light-hearted and festive than in big international matches. Forty thousand spectators can pack into the stadium but this is just the centre of festivities and the event spurs a carnival feeling all over the city, with the party spilling into the streets and venues of Hong Kong.

Website https://www.worldrugby.org/sevens-series/?lang=en

Hong Kong City