The Singapore Night Festival is now in its 17th edition.
The Singapore Night Festival 2026 will run from 21 August to 5 September 2026.
This year, art installations, performances, and immersive activations will be occurring at key points from Bras Basah to Bugis.
Singapore’s spiritual past is revived at the Singapore Night Festival 2026, with performances, installations, and films that thrill.
The night unfolds with the retellings of ‘Myths and Legends’ at the Singapore Night Festival 2026. Running from 21 August to 5 September, the festival will host a series of experiential installations at the city centre with happenings extending out to Singapore’s artistic enclaves.
“With this year’s theme, Myths and Legends, we invite audiences to journey through (the) Bras Basah and Bugis (neighbourhoods) and uncover the many stories that continue to shape Singapore and the region,” says Qazim Karim, festival director of Singapore Night Festival 2026. “Through these, we hope (this festival) will spark curiosity and connection among communities, while strengthening its place as a must-see festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia.”
Now in its 17th edition, the heart of the festival is coined the Museum Zone at City Hall, where key performances and experiences will take place. Venturing further out, the festival spans across three zones. Zone 1 consists of the Funan and Chijmes precincts, where bazaars and interactive artworks lining the streets encourage the discovery of local works. Zone 2 extends from Dhoby Ghaut’s Cathay Green to Waterloo Centre, and hosts exhibitions by the arts communities in the area. Zone 3, however, is categorised by a wider, disparate series of events occurring outside the first two zones that celebrate traditional acts and performances. Below are a series of highlights at the Singapore Night Festival 2026.
Tales of Earth and Sea
With the National Museum of Singapore as the festival’s centrepiece, the happenings this year are ushered in with a striking projection mapping display by the multimedia Indonesian art collective The Fox, The Folks, on the opening night of 21 August. Titled Tales of Earth and Sea, the display on the monument’s façade reimagines folklore, not as recorded events of the past, but as a continuous dialogue influenced by the living, and depicted as visuals “carried by waves, grounded in earth.” The immersive showcase will also be layered by an original soundtrack in collaboration between the Singaporean musical ensemble Artusik and Malaysia’s Universiti Teknologi MARA academic programme.
Where: National Museum of Singapore, Stamford Road, City Hall, Singapore
When: 21 August to 5 September, from 7:30pm to 12am
Birdmen
The Dutch performing troupe Close-Act will be bringing theatre to the streets, with its surreal ‘birdmen’ on stilts roaming about the Museum Zone, and making spectacles with the festival’s gathered crowds.
Where: Museum Zone, City Hall, Singapore
When: 21 August to 23 August, from 7:45pm to 9:15pm
Stormy Straits
Go on a journey through fierce monsoon winds, inspired by tales by early seafarers in the Southeast Asia archipelago, with the Stormy Straits installation unveiling at the Bugis Street Art Lane. Realised with suspended glowing sculptures mimicking the skies of treacherous voyages, the art piece created by Melting Po(r)t Collective: Matlr Creative, StrawberryWasabi, and LiteWerkz invites its audience to relive the forgotten stories of the sea.
Where: Bugis Street Art Lane, Bugis Street, Bugis, Singapore
When: 21 August to 5 September, from 7:30pm to 11pm
The Dragon’s Tooth: A Legend of Becoming Light
Modern Singapore may have since departed far from its past as a coastal town steeped in folklore, but there is much to learn from the lessons they harbour. Starlight Alchemy’s The Dragon’s Tooth: A Legend of Becoming Light does exactly that with a towering bamboo temple, illuminated with performances that tell the story of a protective spiritual guardian sheltering those out at sea and explore the values of courage and belonging amongst men at peril.
Where: SMU Campus Green, Stamford Road, City Hall, Singapore
When: 21 August to 5 September, from 7:30pm to 11pm
Horror Nights @ Oldham Theatre
The Oldham Theatre is out to spook this year, with screenings for a trio of films by Southeast Asian film-makers during the festival’s run. This includes the restoration and re-release of the 1958 classic Orang Minyak, that brings the nefarious ‘oily man’ creature of Malay folklore to the big screen. The other two films selected for this showcase include Roh; a story on the horrors hidden in the forest, and Tiger Stripes; where one girl’s growing pains unleashes a supernatural persona from within.
Where: Oldham Theatre, Canning Rise, National Archives of Singapore, Singapore
When: 22 to 23 August, 29 to 30 August, 5 September, from 7:30pm to 9pm
Contact: www.heritage.sg