Nguyen Thanh Binh, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Thua Thien Hue province, speaks at the opening ceremony of Hue Festival 2023, on January 1, 2022. (Photo: VOV)

The festival will span across the whole year with activities including celebrations of 30 years of UNESCO’s recognition of the Complex of Hue Monuments as a World Cultural Heritage and 20 years of Nha Nhac (royal court music) as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the Hue Traditional Craft Festival.

Opening the festival was the re-enactment of Ban Soc ceremony by the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre. It was held at the end of the lunar year to distribute calendars to royal mandarins during the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945). 

Nguyen Thanh Binh, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Thua Thien Hue province, said the festival's  activities will be diversify to attract the public. 

On the occasion, leaders of the provincial authorities presented flowers and gifts to the first visitors to the complex.