Hue festival pushed to 2021 amid fresh Covid-19 eruption

By Vo Thanh   August 1, 2020 | 06:16 pm PT
Hue festival pushed to 2021 amid fresh Covid-19 eruption
Crowds watch artists perform at a street carnival of the 2018 Hue Festival. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh.
The biennial Festival Hue, scheduled for late August, has been postponed to next year following the fresh Covid-19 outbreak.

It is usually held in April, but had been delayed until August after the pandemic broke out.

It was to have featured street carnivals, ao dai (Vietnam’s traditional dress) shows, a cuisine festival, and a number of art performances.

Vietnam has been hit with a new wave of infections, whose source authorities have yet to identify.

After the first case was diagnosed in Da Nang on Saturday last week, the country of 96 million has reported 144 more domestic infections and three deaths due to Covid-19. Da Nang has now become the country's biggest Covid-19 hotspot with 104 infections.

Neighboring Thua Thien-Hue Province, whose capital is Hue, has shut down all non-essential services like karaoke parlors and bars and banned festivals and religious gatherings though it has recorded no infections so far.

Provincial authorities also ordered all returnees from Da Nang to be quarantined for 14 days and tested for Covid-19.

Hue, with its Imperial Citadel and royal tombs, received over 4.8 million visitors last year, 2.1 million of them foreigners.

The 2018 Festival Hue featured nearly 1,400 artists and professional performers, including 388 from 24 international art troupes.

As of Sunday morning Vietnam has had 590 Covid-19 cases, 214 of them active. Three people have died.

 
 
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