The Arts Festival is the one month of the year when Hong Kong’s stages fill up with companies that otherwise never come this far east. The 55th edition’s published programme opens on 20 February and closes on 21 March 2027, with most performances in Tsim Sha Tsui and Central and a handful out in the New Territories town halls.
Event Essentials
What is on
The festival’s shape rarely changes: a headline opera or large-scale theatre piece, two or three visiting orchestras, a contemporary dance strand, Cantonese-language theatre and a chamber-music series, plus the PLUS programme of talks, films and workshops that sits around the performances.
Programme-by-programme dates, casts and seat prices are published on the festival’s own site, and the full brochure usually lands before Christmas. Dates and edition number checked against hk.artsfestival.org, 1 October 2026.
Booking
Tickets go through the festival’s own booking channels rather than a single box office, so the programme page is the place to start. The marquee opera and ballet nights are the most expensive seats on the Hong Kong calendar and the cheaper upper tiers go first, which is the reason to book the week the brochure appears rather than in February.
If the prices put you off, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra run their own seasons at the same venues all year at a fraction of festival prices, and the Cultural Centre’s foyer concerts are free.