Addressing a press conference on August 20, Le Thi Anh Mai, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the event builds upon the achievements of the inaugural festival alongside expanding its organisation.

The 2025 edition featured 30 cultural, artistic, and tourism activities at various iconic locations across Hanoi, attracting nearly 200,000 participants and generating nearly 1 million engagements on social media. These results demonstrated the appeal of heritage-linked cultural products and the public's desire for such experiences, she added.

The second festival continues to center on heritage while highlighting the processes of its transmission, creativity, and dissemination within contemporary life. The theme "Heritage Flow" focuses on the heritage in the relations among the past, the present, and the future, aiming for new approaches that foster a closer connection with the public, Mai stressed.

This year's festival will take place across various cultural, heritage, and public spaces in the capital such as the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, the Temple of Literature, the Hanoi Museum, Bat Trang craft village, and the Hoan Kiem Lake area in order to create a cultural experience journey across the city.

A series of exhibitions, discussions, interactive experiences, and musical exchanges will be organised on September 12 and from September 18 to 20 at the Hanoi Museum. In particular, the opening ceremony on September 12 will showcase approximately 100 documents and artifacts related to the city’s new music during the 1934–1954 period.

On September 18 the music programme will bring together eight traditional art clubs to perform Tuồng (classical drama), Chèo (traditional theatre), Ca trù (traditional singing art), and Xẩm (blind buskers’ singing). The event will offer the public opportunities for interaction and hands-on experiences.

One day later there will be a contemporary art programme to connect student clubs, young music groups, and community artists to create a journey of discovery that spans from traditional to contemporary music.

A programme which is a fusion of painting and music on September 20 will close the series of events at the Hanoi Museum. Centered around artist Thu Tran’s paintings, the event will evoke stories of war and peace, the image of the Vietnamese mother, and cultural values ​​in contemporary life.

The 2026 edition will also include the special opening art performance, international artistic exchanges, a youth music programme, the "Colour of Hanoi" fashion show, as well as various exhibitions, experiential activities, and cultural exchanges held at multiple locations across the capital.

The second Thang Long-Hanoi Festival is expected to bring heritage closer to the public through art, creativity, tourism, and experiential activities. This initiative also aims to leverage heritage values, foster the development of cultural industries, and gradually build the capital's cultural brand, aligning with Hanoi's designation as a UNESCO Creative City.

Festival Thang Long-Hanoi 2025 honours heritage and creativity

VOV.VN - Festival Thang Long-Hanoi 2025 officially opened at Van Mieu- Quoc Tu Giam (Temple of Literature) on the morning of November 1, with the ‘Converging heritage’ ceremony honouring the capital’s heritage and inspiring creativity across the community.