Hue Festival 2020 will be opened sooner than the previous years (In the photo: An act at the Hue Festival 2018 Opening Ceremony)
The program soon developed
"Hue is always new" is also the theme of the upcoming 11th Festival, associated with the overall theme "Cultural Heritage with Integration and Development". According to the OC, this topic was inspired by the nearly-40-year-ago call issued by Mr. Amadou Matar M'Bow, former General Director of UNESCO. He said, "Hue is a poem about marvelous urban architecture and is the city of entire harmony.” The slogan at that time became a valuable affirmation of Hue and was the focus for attracting the support for Hue building and development.
Unlike the recent Hue Festivals (in 2016 and 2018), held during 30 April and 1 May holidays every year, Hue Festival 2020 will be held sooner, from 1-6 April 2020 (opening on Wednesday night, 1 April 2020 and closing on Monday night, 6 April 2020).
The most appreciated difference in the preparation work this time is that the program frame is soon expected.
Mr. Huynh Tien Dat, Director of Hue Festival Center, Standing Deputy Head of Hue Festival 2020 OC, said that for Hue Festival, the difficulty is that the partners’ confirmation on participation in the festival is often close to the opening day, which causes the late announcement of the program schedule and difficulties in promotion and organization. This year, in addition to the two opening and closing art programs, the content and timing of the main programs have determined
Aside from the two art programs on the opening and closing nights, Hue Festival 2020 will have the important programs and festivals such as street festivals (16:30, continuously from 2-6 April 2020), the Capital’s Civilization program (20:00, 3 April 2020), Trinh Cong Son Music program (20:00, 5 April 2020), Hue Festival - Culinary Capital (from 1-6 April 2020), Ao Dai (Vietnamese women’s traditional dress) Festival (20:00, 4 April 2020)...
In addition, there will be a series of activities, festivals, performance programs of art troupes serving tourists and the public during the six days and nights of Hue Festival 2020. Particularly for the upcoming 11th Festival, the exploitation of community factor is focused on by the OC, oriented towards each citizen and tourist being the subject of the Hue Festival.
According to Huynh Tien Dat, many activities of the street festival will be organized with newer scenarios and methods, focusing on increasing the duration and performance time, gathering the appropriate unique forces.
Simultaneously, the walking routes and tourist streets will be exploited, and the reasonable time frame arranged to create a vibrant festival atmosphere during the festival in order to attract tourists, especially international ones.
Giving a fillip to tourism development
The overall goal of the biennial Hue Festival is to create a great cultural event in order to honor Hue's cultural heritage, thereby gradually becoming a distinct and unique tourism product giving a fillip to tourism development.
The Hue Festival 2020 OC said that the organization time of the two most recent Hue Festivals was on 30 April and 1 May holidays. The organization at that time had many advantages because it attracted many tourists from all social strata. However, the drawback was that it made Hue tourism unable to serve and hotels overloaded from before, right at the time when the two factors attracting tourists (namely Hue Festival and holidays) occurred concurrently.
Therefore, this year, the OC decided to shift the organization time in order to increase efficiency in organization, give a stimulus to tourism and increase revenue contribution to the tourism and service sectors.
Mr. Huynh Tien Dat said that one new point, also a change to increase professionalization is to increase efficiency in the festival promotion, an important area of the festival. This year, the Hue Festival will cooperate with a highly reputable media unit to make the plan and do the promotion.
The Hue Festival organization space continues to be divided into IN (ticketing) and OFF (no ticketing) programs. The main space will be the IN program areas, the venue for the outstanding, high quality art troupes both domestically and internationally, with the rich and attractive performance art genres concentrated in the Royal Palace.
An Dinh Palace continues to be a vibrant and contemporary music stage for young people, with the participation of international and domestic high-class troupes. The space of the OFF program will choose the Huong River as the main axis for organization on both banks. Coupled with these are the activities of community, cohesion and interaction among the subjects of the festival.
Story and photo: Quang Sang