Guangzhou to host Greater Bay Area culture and art festival

The first Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Culture and Arts Festival is slated to be hosted in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on June 24, according to a press conference held on June 18.

The festival will be held at Guangzhou Opera House and will consist of 100 activities, such as the opening ceremony, art show tours, and a youth performers exchange season.

To date, the warm-up events for the festival have started and the main activities will last until mid-July. Cultural and artistic activities will also be held simultaneously in Hong Kong, Macao, and other Pearl River Delta cities. Some follow-up activities will continue until the end of 2019. 

During the opening ceremony, a special boat tour will be held in the Pearl River downtown section of Guangzhou with 12 boats, including a theme boat and 11 cruise ships representing the cities of the Greater Bay Area.

From 2019 onwards, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Culture and Arts Festival will be held once a year in a city selected from 11 cities of the Greater Bay Area.

The festival is a measure to implement the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area released in February by the State Council and a keymove to build a Bay Area of the humanities. It will integrate the cultural resources in these places and help promote the cultural soft power of the Greater Bay Area, according to Bai Jie, deputy head of the Publicity Department of CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee.