This year’s traditional Mid-Autumn Festival programme has been designed as a journey of heritage experiences, connecting historical and cultural sites with artisans, researchers, artists and the public.
Exhibitions, performances, hands-on craft activities, folk games and artistic creation will offer participants opportunities to directly explore, experience and appreciate cultural values passed down through generations.
Activities under the programme will take place across six different venues. The opening ceremony and starting point of the journey will be the Ha Noi Old Quarter Cultural Exchange Centre at 50 Dao Duy Tu Street.
The space will take visitors back to Viet Nam’s wet-rice agricultural culture, one of the foundations that shaped the customs, festivals and spiritual life of the Vietnamese people. Activities will recreate the cultural space of wet-rice agriculture while introducing the significance of the full moon of the eighth lunar month and the traditional values of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Each venue in the Old Quarter will be designed as a “storytelling station”. The next stop will be the Culture and Arts Centre at 22 Hang Buom Street, which is expected to host an exhibition featuring traditional Mid-Autumn toys, visual arts, folk games, Vietnamese tea culture and creative hands-on activities.
At the Heritage House at 87 Ma May Street, a space themed “Don Trang” (Welcoming the Moon) will tell the story of the Mid-Autumn Festival in traditional Ha Noi family life, alongside activities offering visitors the chance to make mooncakes and traditional handicrafts.
The venue at 40 Lan Ong Street will connect Mid-Autumn Festival culture with folk knowledge, herbal teas, agarwood tea and herbal products.
Meanwhile, at the Ho Guom Cultural Information Centre at 2 Le Thai To Street, the organisers will create a space dedicated to traditional lion heads, showcase works by pupils and students, and organise community-based experiential activities.
Rather than holding a series of separate events, linking the venues into a single journey will enable the public to gradually discover the different cultural layers of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
This approach also allows the Management Board of Hoan Kiem Lake and Ha Noi Old Quarter to connect tangible and intangible heritage, artisans and communities, as well as traditional knowledge and contemporary creativity, bringing heritage values closer to modern-day life.
In addition, on the evening of September 25, 2026, corresponding to the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the “Full Moon Festival Night” procession will take place in the pedestrian area around Hoan Kiem Lake.
The procession will depart from the stage in front of the Ho Guom Cultural Information Centre at 2 Le Thai To Street and proceed along streets surrounding Hoan Kiem Lake.
Traditional Mid-Autumn lanterns, lion heads, festival flags and folk characters, together with the participation of artisans, students, youth union members, local residents and visitors, will help recreate the vibrant atmosphere of a traditional lantern procession in the heart of the capital city.
