Community elements will be maximized at Hue Festival 2020 (Street Festival at Hue Festival 2018)

Using quality to compensate for quantity

Mr. Huynh Tien Dat, Director of Hue Festival Center, Deputy Head of the Organizing Committee of Hue Festival 2020 said that a big change of this year's Hue Festival is there will no longer be a spread out selection of programs. In previous festivals, community-based programs accounted for two-thirds of the activities. This year, the focus is investing in improving the quality of several important programs to socialize and to attract tourists.

In this year’s Hue Festival, in addition to countries which are strong in the field of music and dance, the organizers encourage countries to send art troupes with special community-based nature and contemporary art troupes. At Hue Festival 2020, many art troupes will have very high accessibility to the public, such as the Australian circus, which has toured in 50 countries around the world or special street art troupes of Latin America.

The Hue Festival 2020 Organizing Committee said that this year the IN program (with ticket sales) will be made compact with improved quality. Organizers will reduce the number of stages to three in the Imperial Citadel area, instead of the five to seven stages as before and remain only one stage at An Dinh palace. Accordingly, only art shows of exceptional quality will be arranged.

For other performances, the Organizing Committee will offer community spaces, with about 3 - 4 performance points on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Walking Street, Pham Ngu Lao, Chu Van An and Vo Thi Sau Walking Streets, and along the southern bank of the Perfume River to help the public and visitors access and enjoy the unique art of many countries.

Mr. Huynh Tien Dat also asserted that in addition to international art troupes, the selection of domestic art troupes to participate and perform at Hue Festival 2020 will also be rigorous. Previously, the selection of art groups was usually based on their regional representation, but at this 11th festival, the organizers will select and balance the art forms so that the audience can enjoy the art forms according to their different needs and interests.

At previous Hue festivals, the opening and closing arts program was built with a similar motif; in particular, the scale and art quality of the closing program was not as high as the opening night. The Organizing Committee has agreed on a plan to select the program "Old Capital Culture and Civilization" as the closing program. This will be an elaborate art program with different types of traditional Hue royal art.

Hue Festival 2020’s programs will be reduced in quantity but improved in quality, especially the high-class art programs

Towards the highest community nature

The Organizing Committee of Hue Festival 2020 said that in the past festivals, community elements were promoted. This year they will continue to be promoted to the maximum in order to help the public and tourists to participate in the festival and be the master of the festival. Take for example, the street festival which was previously organized simply with only the art troupes performing, this year, there will be a more diverse range of activities such as traditional processions and wedding ceremonies of Vietnamese ethnic groups in “Wedding Colors” and the recreation of traditional folk games and festivals of Hue.

Another program that also focuses on expanding the community sense is the Ao dai Festival, which only took place for one night in previous festivals. This year, it will be extended to 3 nights, including one night to honor students' ao dai, Royal ao dai and modern ao dai nights.

Particularly, the Ao dai program for students has the participation of students and alumni and will be held at Hai Ba Trung High School, creating a scene of school dismissal in which female students will be wearing the traditional costume. With this organization, the organizers also wish to encourage the movement to bring back Ao dai to the community, which is a way to nurture the image of Hue traditional Ao dai.

Mr. Huynh Tien Dat hoped that these community-based programs will help some of the tailors and young designers in Hue to become acquainted with big events and gradually build their own brands. Hue designers participating in the program will also be involved in training local model crews for future events.

Or with the Street Festival, promoting elements of processions and traditional games is an opportunity to support localities to restore cultural values and perfect their organization.

"With many other programs, the Organizing Committee wants to promote the traditional cultural values for future development in tourism," Mr. Dat emphasized.

Story and photos: Quang Sang