“MORE THAN GREAT PERFORMANCES！”

There’s so much more to the Hong Kong Arts Festival than just great performances! Through a diverse range of PLUS events, the HKAF provides a complete cultural experience for arts lovers, deepens the public’s understanding of our world-class artists and reaches out to various communities in Hong Kong. The PLUS events include talks, artist sharing sessions, masterclasses, backstage tours, exhibitions, post-performance meet-the-artist sessions and film screenings.

Highlights of the 2026 PLUS events include a series of cultural tours that help participants explore the connections between the HKAF’s programmes and local cultural characteristics, emphasising Hong Kong's unique heritage, historical buildings, leisure activities and more. In addition, this year we’re presenting several events focusing on timely topics or outstanding virtuosos, inviting arts experts and scholars to discuss with the audience topics such as sustainability, intangible cultural heritage, the industrialisation of the creative arts, and the history and development of Chinese opera.

Regardless of whether you’re an arts enthusiast or an artist yourself, we’re sure that you’ll find endless enjoyment in our PLUS events!

Past Festival PLUS programme guide

Past Festival PLUS Websites

Young Friends Scheme

Established in 1992, the Young Friends of the Hong Kong Arts Festival is an integrated arts education and audience development programme for local full-time secondary and tertiary students aged 25 or below. It is designed to nurture young students' interest in the arts. The Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund has been supporting the programme since its establishment.

Members of Young Friends can enjoy two selected performances and rehearsals throughout the Festival. In addition, Young Friends organises various arts-enrichment activities such as workshops, talks and backstage tours to enhance students’ appreciation of the performing arts. In 2022-23, Young Friends recruited 3,800 members from 83 secondary schools and 27 tertiary institutions, and reached almost 14,000 students through its various activities. Since its establishment, Young Friends has recruited 183,000 members and reached 820,000 students.

Digital Arts Education Platform

Welcome to the Digital Arts Education Platform of the Hong Kong Arts Festival! We are delighted to share a broad spectrum of arts educational materials on this new platform. We hope that you will find the resources interesting, and enjoy exploring the infinite possibilities of the arts with us.

Driven by its educational principle, “LEARN, EXPLORE, CREATE”, the Hong Kong Arts Festival offers a broad spectrum of arts education activities throughout the year, examples of which include the Young Friends programme, the Jockey Club Local Creative Talents Series, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Student Matinee Programme, and more. Curated with the aim of developing students’ interest and appreciation in the performing arts, these arts educations activities provide students with range of ancillary information before, during and after the performances.

As technology continues to advance in our society, HKAF periodically makes adjustments to adapt to prevailing conditions. Our arts education activities are now offered in person and via online platforms, allowing our productions to develop in various forms to meet the diverse needs of schools and students. With a focus in harnessing Arts Tech, we are also exploring the emerging field of interdisciplinary arts development to push students’ understanding of the arts and their imaginations to the next level.