Singapore Night Festival 2026 is over. The 17th edition ran for 16 nights, from Friday 21 August to Saturday 5 September, across the Bras Basah.Bugis precinct with 97 programmes under one theme: Myths and Legends. Its headline was a free projection-mapping takeover of the National Museum's facade, Tales of Earth and Sea by Indonesian collective The Fox, The Folks, scored by Singapore's Artusik with UiTM Malaysia. New this year was MALAM, the festival's first Southeast Asian projection-mapping competition, which screened 18 finalists on The Cathay from 21 to 28 August and the Top 5 from 29 August to the close. Almost everything was free. The two ticketed programmes worth planning around were The Lost Legacy of Fort Canning: The Forbidden Hill, a $60 nocturnal trail on Bukit Larangan, and Horror Nights @ Oldham Theatre at $10 a screening. Heritage SG has not announced 2027 dates yet, but the last two editions both opened on a Friday in the second half of August and closed on the first Saturday of September. Below is the full record of the nine highlights, the map and zones, and what you can still do at the same venues now.
Singapore Night Festival 2026 ended on Saturday 5 September, so the picks below are a record of what ran, with what is still open at the same venues.
> Quick view: All 97 programmes have ended. The 2027 dates are not out yet; the last two editions opened on a Friday in the second half of August. Still free nearby: the National Museum's permanent galleries, for Singapore Citizens and PRs.
The festival's signature projection-mapping work, thrown across the full neoclassical facade of the National Museum of Singapore. Bandung-based multimedia team The Fox, The Folks reinterpreted Southeast Asian folklore as a running dialogue between land and water, treating legends not as fixed past events but as living things carried by waves and grounded in earth. The soundtrack was original, produced by Singapore music collective Artusik in collaboration with UiTM Malaysia. It launched at 8pm on 21 August with the Birdmen alongside it, then ran free every night, with no registration, until 5 September. The projection is over, but the museum is not: its permanent galleries stay open and are free for Singapore Citizens and PRs. Address: 93 Stamford Road; nearest MRT Bras Basah or Bencoolen.
ENDED 5 Sep 2026. Was free, nightly 21 Aug – 5 Sep. The museum's permanent galleries remain free for Singapore Citizens and PRs.
The festival's first-ever projection-mapping competition for emerging Southeast Asian artists and students, and this year's reason to walk down to Cathay Green. Close to 50 entries came in. The 18 finalist artworks were projected onto the historic facade of The Cathay from 21 to 28 August, judged at 8.30pm on 28 August and awarded at a prize-giving at 8.30pm on 29 August, after which the Top 5 ran on a loop until the festival closed on 5 September. Supported by Official Technology Partner Epson and Supporting Partner CP Khetan. It was free with no registration. Address: 2 Handy Road; nearest MRT Dhoby Ghaut.
ENDED 5 Sep 2026. Was free: 18 finalists screened 21–28 Aug, then the Top 5 from 29 Aug to 5 Sep.
The only big ticketed programme, and the one that needed booking ahead. Before Fort Canning, before Government Hill, this was Bukit Larangan, the Forbidden Hill, which early Malay settlers refused to climb, believing it the burial ground of ancient kings. When Raffles wanted to climb it in 1819, the Temenggong's men warned him of hundreds of voices, heavy drums and ghostly shouts heard daily. He climbed anyway; the local Malay population never followed. Sight Lines Productions and The Urbanist Singapore turned that into a 70-minute nocturnal trail across six stations in Fort Canning Park, with immersive soundscapes and live traditional Malay dance, walked as a participant rather than a spectator. It cost $60 a ticket and ran eight nights only: 21–22 August, 27–29 August and 3–5 September, with Thursday sessions at 8pm and Friday and Saturday sessions at 7.30pm and 9.30pm, booked through Klook. The meeting point was SMU Connexion at 40 Stamford Road (by the Fort Canning Park sign), not the hill itself, and because the show was delivered as immersive audio, guests brought their own earphones and a charged phone with mobile data. It was wheelchair-friendly. The trail has finished its run; Fort Canning Park itself is a free public park. Nearest MRT Dhoby Ghaut or Fort Canning.
ENDED 5 Sep 2026. Was $60 per ticket over eight nights (21–22 Aug, 27–29 Aug, 3–5 Sep), booked via Klook.
The best free installation this year for anyone who liked walking into an artwork rather than looking at one. Scaffolding structures rose above Bugis Street Art Lane and billowed into illuminated cloud forms carved by moving shadows: the monsoon squalls braved by the Bugis seafarers who sailed these waters in the early 1800s, and whose stories were whispered across the archipelago for generations. Glowing lighthouses stood in as refuge points along the way. Built by Melting Po(r)t Collective (Matlr Creative, StrawberryWasabi and LiteWerkz) in collaboration with Official Partner Bugis Street. It was free with no registration, nightly for all 16 nights, and ended with the festival on 5 September. Nearest MRT Bugis.
ENDED 5 Sep 2026. Was free, nightly 21 Aug – 5 Sep.
The most photogenic stop of the lot, and the easiest to fit in from Orchard. A 2.8-metre-tall interactive Fortune Merlion by Singapore sustainable art-toy brand UNIPLAY, with animated movement in both its arm and its head, a mash-up of the Merlion and the fortune cat. Half of the fibreglass composite it is made from is recycled PET bottle flakes, replacing a chunk of virgin resin: a deliberate nod to the original monument standing at the mouth of what used to be a badly polluted Singapore River. UNIPLAY was founded by Joe Chua, whose 'Trash to Treasure' campaign turns discarded PET bottles into 3D-printed collectibles. Presented with Supporting Partner Plaza Singapura, it was free and on show nightly until the festival ended on 5 September. Address: 68 Orchard Road; nearest MRT Dhoby Ghaut.
ENDED 5 Sep 2026. Was free, nightly 21 Aug – 5 Sep.
Useful for anyone who arrived before the 7.30pm start, because this was the rare piece designed to work in daylight as well. Singapore visual artist Ching Kai, who has 20 years behind him across paper art, installation, scenography, photography and moving image, built a walk-through structure inspired by traditional street performance and communal myth-making. By day it read as a tapestry of shifting colours and reflective surfaces that changed with the sunlight and with whoever was moving through it. After dark it switched to animated shadow projections, live music and silhouettes, and visitors could play with the projections to write their own movement into the story. Presented with Supporting Partner Raffles City Singapore, it was free with no registration and ended with the festival on 5 September. Address: 252 North Bridge Road; nearest MRT City Hall.
ENDED 5 Sep 2026. Was free, by day and after dark, 21 Aug – 5 Sep.
The festival's official F&B tie-in, and the sit-down alternative to queueing at a village stall. The cocktail lounge at Fairmont Singapore ran a limited-time Night Festival menu for the full 21 August to 5 September window, reworking local street food with a fine-dining hand: grilled chicken wings with lemon balm and garlic chilli, beef short rib skewers glazed in a bak kut teh reduction, and salted egg yolk lava shrimp croquettes finished with caviar and curry leaf. The festival listing gave its hours as 12nn to 12.15am. Its booking terms were strict: reservations had to be confirmed with a credit card, cancellations inside 48 hours (or no-shows) were charged at $40++ per person, and ALL Plus Explorer and AMEX Love Dining discounts did not apply to that menu. The festival menu has ended, but ANTI:DOTE itself is open daily from 8.30am to 1am on Level 1 of Fairmont Singapore, with afternoon tea from 12pm to 2pm and 3pm to 5pm (reservations recommended). Address: 80 Bras Basah Road; nearest MRT City Hall or Esplanade.
Festival menu ENDED 5 Sep 2026 · ANTI:DOTE itself is open daily 8.30am–1am · afternoon tea 12pm–2pm and 3pm–5pm
This ran on the opening weekend only. Close-Act Theatre from the Netherlands, a company that builds spectacular outdoor theatre where interaction with the crowd is the whole point, brought its luminous Birdmen to the streets of Bras Basah.Bugis for their Southeast Asian debut. Think towering stilt-walking bird puppets lit from within, roving through the precinct with live music, stopping for anyone who gets close enough. The parade started at the National Museum of Singapore, roved through the Bras Basah.Bugis precinct and finished at SMU Campus Green. Three nights only: 21, 22 and 23 August, at 7.45pm and 9.15pm, and they also appeared alongside the Tales of Earth and Sea launch at 8pm on 21 August. It was free, roving and needed no registration. Kept here for the record, since Close-Act has a habit of returning in later editions.
ENDED. This was free and ran 21–23 Aug 2026 ONLY, at 7.45pm and 9.15pm.
It was the cheapest ticket of the festival. The Asian Film Archive, with the National Library Board and Heritage SG, traced Southeast Asian horror from the 1950s to now inside the historic Oldham Theatre at the National Archives of Singapore. Three screenings, three nights: Orang Minyak (1958) on Saturday 22 August at 7.30pm, the 'oily man' terrorising a village, digitally restored by the AFA in 2018 from a 16mm black-and-white print in its own collection; Tiger Stripes (2023) on Sunday 23 August at 7.30pm, a Malaysian teenager's body turning against her after her classmates find out she has started menstruating; and Roh (2019) on Saturday 29 August at 8.30pm, a strange girl, a vulnerable mother, and a forest that comes alive. Tickets were $10 through Klook. Address: 1 Canning Rise. Worth following the Asian Film Archive: its own calendar was already listing new screenings on 11 and 12 September.
ENDED. $10 per screening, ran on 22, 23 & 29 Aug 2026 only. The Asian Film Archive keeps a year-round screening calendar.
| Programme | Where | When | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tales of Earth and Sea | National Museum of Singapore | Ended; ran nightly 21 Aug – 5 Sep | Free |
| MALAM Projection Mapping | The Cathay | Ended; 18 finalists 21–28 Aug, Top 5 29 Aug – 5 Sep | Free |
| The Forbidden Hill | Fort Canning Hill (met at SMU Connexion) | Ended; 8 nights, last on 5 Sep | $60 |
| Stormy Straits | Bugis Street Art Lane | Ended; ran nightly 21 Aug – 5 Sep | Free |
| Blooming Hearts Fortune Merlion | Plaza Singapura | Ended; ran nightly 21 Aug – 5 Sep | Free |
| Inter-Light | Raffles City | Ended; ran 21 Aug – 5 Sep | Free |
| ANTI:DOTE festival menu | Fairmont Singapore | Menu ended 5 Sep; bar open daily | A la carte |
| Birdmen by Close-Act | Bras Basah.Bugis precinct | Ended; ran 21–23 Aug only | Free |
| Horror Nights @ Oldham | National Archives of Singapore | Ended; ran 22, 23 & 29 Aug only | $10 |
Status. Ended on Saturday 5 September 2026. Nothing from the festival is still running.
Hours (as they ran). 7.30pm to 12 midnight on Fridays and Saturdays; 7.30pm to 11pm Sunday to Thursday. Select weekend programmes ran later.
Layout. A Museum Zone (National Museum of Singapore, Children's Museum Singapore) plus three zones: Funan to CHIJMES, Cathay Green to Waterloo Centre, and Bras Basah Complex to Stamford Arts Centre.
Getting there. Bras Basah, Bencoolen, City Hall or Bugis MRT, all a short walk from the zones. Dhoby Ghaut was the practical station for The Cathay and Plaza Singapura.
Money. Almost everything was free with no registration. The two tickets were $60 for The Forbidden Hill at Fort Canning (eight nights, last on 5 September) and $10 a screening for Horror Nights at the National Archives (last on 29 August).
Time needed. About three hours to walk the whole thing at a slow pace. First aid and information were at SMU Campus Green.
Heritage SG has not announced dates for the 18th edition. The pattern has been steady, though: 2025 ran 22 August to 6 September and 2026 ran 21 August to 5 September, both opening on a Friday and closing 16 nights later on the first Saturday of September. Plan on late August 2027, and treat any exact date you see before the official announcement as a guess.
Three things from this year worth remembering for next time:
NightFest had no single stage. The 97 programmes spread across four hubs, grouped as a Museum Zone plus three numbered zones.
The official festival map is still online as a free PDF. It lives at heritage.sg/sgnightfest/maps, alongside the curated Trails, ready-made walking routes that strung the highlights together. The PDF plots 21 numbered sites across the four colour-coded zones and marks the first aid and information points.
The map is also more precise than "nearest MRT" suggests, because it marks the specific exits: Bras Basah Exits A and E, Bencoolen Exits A and B, and City Hall Exits A, B and D, the last of which connects through Stamford Walkway and an underground pedestrian link towards Capitol Singapore. By zone and address:
SMU Campus Green sits roughly in the middle of all of it: first aid and information services were based there, and the You and I Believing... sculpture stood there.
The nine stops above were the ones worth planning around, but they were not the whole map. Three more Night Lights installations ran free, nightly, for the full 21 August to 5 September window, all on the walking route between the zones:
None of the three needed registration, and none were ticketed.
*Programme dates, timings and prices are from the official Singapore Night Festival site (heritage.sg/sgnightfest), checked against each programme page on 1 September 2026 and rechecked on 11 September 2026, after the festival closed; the MALAM finalist count and judging dates are from its programme page. The 2025 dates are from the SNF 2025 festival booklet. ANTI:DOTE's current hours are from antidotebar.sg and the Asian Film Archive's screenings from asianfilmarchive.org, both checked on 11 September 2026. Cover and programme images are courtesy of the Singapore Night Festival / National Heritage Board and the respective artists and programme partners, credited individually per the SNF 2026 media kit.*
Singapore Night Festival 2026 ran for 16 nights from Friday 21 August to Saturday 5 September 2026, and it has now ended. Hours were 7.30pm to 12 midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and 7.30pm to 11pm from Sunday to Thursday, with select weekend programmes running later. It was the 17th edition, themed Myths and Legends, drawing on folklore from Singapore and the wider Southeast Asian region. Heritage SG has not announced dates for 2027. The last two editions followed the same shape: 22 August to 6 September in 2025 and 21 August to 5 September in 2026, each opening on a Friday and closing on the first Saturday of September. Late August 2027 is the likely window, but treat any exact date as a guess until the festival site confirms it.
No. Every programme ended by Saturday 5 September, including the free headline works: Tales of Earth and Sea on the National Museum facade, the MALAM Top 5 on The Cathay, and the Night Lights installations (Stormy Straits at Bugis Street Art Lane, the Blooming Hearts Fortune Merlion at Plaza Singapura, Inter-Light at Raffles City, Lovebug at National Library Plaza, Once Upon A Time at Capitol Plaza and You and I Believing... at SMU Campus Green). The last ticketed programme, The Lost Legacy of Fort Canning: The Forbidden Hill at $60, played its final sessions on 3, 4 and 5 September. The venues themselves are still worth a visit: the National Museum's permanent galleries are free for Singapore Citizens and PRs, ANTI:DOTE at Fairmont Singapore is open daily, and the Asian Film Archive screens films year-round. For the next big after-dark outings, Mid-Autumn lantern displays run into early October and the Singapore F1 weekend is 9 to 11 October.
The great majority of the 97 programmes were free with no registration required, including both headline projection-mapping works (Tales of Earth and Sea on the National Museum and MALAM on The Cathay) and every Night Lights installation. Only a handful were ticketed. Two were worth planning around this edition: The Lost Legacy of Fort Canning: The Forbidden Hill at $60 per ticket, which ran eight nights and closed on 5 September, and Horror Nights @ Oldham Theatre at $10 per screening, which finished on 29 August. Both were booked through Klook, with registration required. A third category, 'free but registration required', applied to some workshops and tours. If the 2027 edition follows the same model, each programme page at heritage.sg/sgnightfest carries its admission line.
Four MRT stations sat within a short walk of the festival zones: Bras Basah, Bencoolen, City Hall and Bugis. Bras Basah was closest to the National Museum projection, Bugis put you at Stormy Straits on Bugis Street Art Lane, and Dhoby Ghaut was the practical choice for The Cathay and Plaza Singapura. Walking the entire experience took roughly three hours at a slow pace. Wheelchair-accessible routes were available, first aid and information services were based at SMU Campus Green, and Festival Assistants and Volunteers were stationed on site for directions.
Three things. First, MALAM, the festival's inaugural projection-mapping competition for emerging Southeast Asian artists and students, which received close to 50 submissions, screened 18 finalists on The Cathay's facade from 21 to 28 August and then the Top 5 from 29 August. Second, a dedicated Museum Zone anchored on the National Museum and the Children's Museum Singapore, alongside three other zones running Funan to CHIJMES, Cathay Green to Waterloo Centre, and Bras Basah Complex to Stamford Arts Centre. Third, Light Together Bras Basah.Bugis, a companion programme of additional installations built around colloquial local myths and superstitions.
Yes. The official 2026 festival map is still online as a free PDF at heritage.sg/sgnightfest/maps, plotting 21 numbered sites across the four colour-coded zones along with the first aid and information points. The same page keeps the curated Trails, ready-made walking routes that linked the highlights. The festival was laid out as a Museum Zone (National Museum and Children's Museum Singapore, nearest MRT Bras Basah or Bencoolen) plus three numbered zones: Funan to CHIJMES (City Hall), Cathay Green to Waterloo Centre (Dhoby Ghaut) and Bras Basah Complex to Stamford Arts Centre (Bugis). The easiest single walk was to start at Dhoby Ghaut for the MALAM projections on The Cathay and the Fortune Merlion at Plaza Singapura, cut across to the National Museum for Tales of Earth and Sea, then finish at Bugis for Stormy Straits, roughly three hours at a slow pace. SMU Campus Green was the mid-point landmark where first aid and information services were based.
Yes, and the festival tagged programmes accordingly: the listing at heritage.sg/sgnightfest let you filter by child-friendly, elderly-friendly, neurodiverse-friendly and wheelchair-friendly. The Museum Zone was the strongest bet for young children: the Children's Museum Singapore ran a free Open House across all three festival weekends, plus two folklore-based hands-on programmes: Before Kusu Island: The Baby Fish and the Giant Turtle, where kids crafted a glowing jellyfish lantern, and Before Pulau Ubin: The Great Animal Race, a free interactive race with a community artwork to build. The big projection works and light installations were easy wins for all ages since there was no queue and no seating involved. The one catch, worth remembering for 2027, was the 7.30pm start, which is late for very young children on a school night.
Yes, for some of it. The festival's programme listing at heritage.sg/sgnightfest carried an SG Culture Pass filter, and 15 of the 97 programmes were tagged as eligible, including both ticketed headliners: The Lost Legacy of Fort Canning: The Forbidden Hill at $60 and Horror Nights @ Oldham Theatre at $10. Also on the eligible list were the Legends After Dark festival walking tour, the Craft x Design session at the Peranakan Museum on 22 August, Between Stories at CHIJMES Hall on 3–4 September, and the Heritage Night Walk guided tour. If you did not spend your credits, they have not lapsed: the S$100 SG Culture Pass credits run until 31 December 2028, and remain usable for other eligible arts and heritage programmes until then.
