Keo Pagoda Festival in Autumn: Towards a civilized festival season with traditional cultural identity

The Keo Pagoda Festival in the fall of 2024 will be held for 8 days, from October 12 to 19 (September 10 to 17, the year of the Dragon). With a variety of activities taking place, it is expected to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors and local people to offer incense to Buddha, Saints, and attend the festival. Therefore, preparations for the traditional festival season have been going on for many months now, with special attention paid to preserving and conserving traditional cultural beauty, towards a civilized festival season under the nearly 400-year-old ancient pagoda.

Keo Pagoda - a unique ancient architecture preserved for nearly 400 years.

Destination on the spiritual cultural tourism journey

The Keo Pagoda Autumn Festival opens on September 10, the year of the Dragon, with many cultural and spiritual experiences for visitors, including the opening ceremony, puppetry to the Saint, the Saint procession, the spirit mediumship, and the lantern festival. During the festival, there are many traditional cultural activities held throughout the festival days such as drumming, singing on boats, traditional martial arts performances, chess tournaments, duck catching competitions in the lake, phoenix-wing betel-wrapping competitions, and exchanges between rowing and water puppetry clubs.

Mr. Do Ngoc Trung, Head of the Department of Culture and Information of Vu Thu district, said: Instead of 6 days like previous years, this year's autumn festival is organized at the district level with 8 days. Many activities are focused on early implementation such as security and order, traffic safety, environmental sanitation, propaganda, celebrations... creating a joyful and exciting atmosphere, towards a civilized festival season, leaving a good impression on visitors when they come to offer incense and go to the festival. In particular, the organizing committee determined that with the expected large number of visitors participating in the festival, especially during the main festival days, environmental sanitation activities, preserving green, clean and beautiful landscapes are carried out regularly. Households providing food services have signed a commitment on food hygiene and safety, and organized disinfection spraying. In addition, because the architecture of Keo Pagoda is entirely made of wood, fire prevention and fighting work is focused on by the festival organizers and the relic management board, with regular staff on duty, reminding visitors not to burn incense or candles in the pagoda, and promptly handling incidents when they occur.

According to Mr. Do Ngoc Trung, for the area where the festival and ceremony activities are held, the entire main stage is arranged in a large, airy space, so that visitors and locals can conveniently admire and follow the full art program and activities held here. For the food stall area arranged outside the relic site, visitors can experience 130 booths including OCOP products and key products, typical of localities in and outside the province. At the same time, throughout the days from October 12 to 19, there will be a cake and food festival to serve the needs of visitors to enjoy local specialties when coming to Keo Pagoda festival.

Singing cruise at Keo Pagoda festival.

Special art space

As a special highlight in the series of activities of the autumn festival, the opening night of the festival has a special art program that is elaborately staged, expected to create a deep impression on local people and tourists from all over. This is a comprehensive art program with epic tones, with Professor of History Le Van Lan as historical advisor and cultural researcher Nguyen Thanh as literary advisor. During the 60-minute duration, the program has the participation of about 300 professional and non-professional artists, singers, actors from Thai Binh Cheo Theater and many art troupes across the country. In addition, there are folk artists in the province who take on the role of reenacting on stage some typical folk dances such as frog-catching dance, rowing and traditional sports with the martial spirit of Thai Binh residents such as rowing, walking, pushing sticks, wrestling, etc.

Ms. Pham Thi Nhu Phong, Chairman of Vu Thu District People's Committee shared: Through the organization of annual festivals, the organizing committee is very happy and excited to see the great interest of tourists from all over the world in the festival. With the desire to improve the scale of the organization, each year there are new points and highlights in the festival organization activities, thereby creating a good impression in the hearts of tourists. The art program is one of the special marks at this year's festival, not only conveying historical and cultural values but also contributing to introducing the beauty of the land and people of Vu Thu in the process of innovation, integration and development...

Actively preparing for the Keo Pagoda Festival in the fall of 2024 according to traditional rituals and many new festival activities, creating excitement for visitors when coming to offer incense and worship, the people of Keo village in particular, Vu Thu district in general hope that the festival will always be an unmissable destination for visitors from all over the country on their journey of spiritual and cultural tourism. At the same time, through the Keo Pagoda Festival, it will contribute to promoting tourism activities, gradually developing tourism into an important economic sector of the province as the task of the Resolution of the 20th Provincial Party Congress has set out.