Vietnam’s Hue to stage drone light festival on Perfume River alongside Da Nang fireworks festival

Tran Huu Thuy Giang, vice-chairman of the Hue People’s Committee, announced the plan at a regular press briefing for the third quarter of this year on Wednesday.

The festival will use advanced equipment and cutting-edge light graphics, similar to light shows held in Singapore and Australia, Giang said.

It will be the first time Hue has organized such an event, which the city hopes to make an annual feature and a highlight of its nighttime tourism offerings and cultural industries.

The event will be held at the same time as Da Nang’s annual fireworks festival on the Han River, which has become a signature tourism event of the central city.

Giang stressed that the timing was carefully chosen and was not intended to create competition between the two cities in organizing tourism events.

“This is an event to draw tourists to Hue. Tourists who spend one night watching the fireworks in Da Nang will, in any case, spend another night in Hue watching the light festival,” he said.

At the press briefing, Giang also said he had instructed the tourism sector to work with Hue police to crack down on touting and street vending along pedestrian streets in the city center.

Previously, local ward and commune authorities had been tasked with addressing street vending, but the effort had proved ineffective.

This time, police will join the campaign to tackle touting and street vending and improve the tourism environment across the city.

Hue welcomed more than 6.4 million tourist arrivals in January-September 2026, up 29 percent year on year, fetching VND15.4 trillion (US$592.9 million) in tourism revenue, surging 60 percent, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Da Nang usually holds the Da Nang International Fireworks Festival in the summer, mainly from late May through July, with the competition nights typically held about a week apart.

This year's fireworks festival took place from May 30 to July 11, featuring six competition nights and a final.