Festivals and Celebrations in Penang
Part of the Penang travel guide — see every topic in All Penang Guides.
Penang's festival calendar is unusually full even by Malaysian standards, because the island's Chinese, Indian, Malay and Peranakan communities all celebrate and because George Town's compact streets make everything visible. Several of these are genuinely worth planning a trip around: the Kek Lok Si illumination at Chinese New Year, the George Town Festival in July and August, and the Hungry Ghost Festival, which fills the streets with opera stages for a month.
Chinese New Year
The biggest event on the island. Kek Lok Si temple is illuminated with tens of thousands of lanterns and lights for roughly thirty nights from the eve of the new year, turning the entire hillside above Air Itam into a spectacle visible from across the city. The clan jetties are decorated and busy with celebrations, the ninth day — the Hokkien Jade Emperor's birthday, particularly important in Penang — brings large offerings and fireworks, and lion dances run through the streets. Hotels fill and prices rise; book months ahead.
The Hungry Ghost Festival
Through the seventh lunar month, usually August or September, the gates of the underworld are held to open and the wandering dead are fed. In Penang this produces temporary stages across the island for koa-hi Chinese street opera and modern getai variety shows, performed for an audience of ghosts with the front row of seats left conspicuously empty. Enormous paper effigies of the King of Hades are built and burned. It is one of the most atmospheric things in South-East Asia and almost no visitors know it is happening.
Thaipusam and Deepavali
Thaipusam, in January or February, brings a silver chariot procession through George Town over several days, with devotees carrying kavadi — ornate frames, many attached to the body with hooks and skewers — along the route to the Waterfall Hilltop Temple. Penang's is the second-largest Thaipusam observance in Malaysia after Batu Caves. Deepavali in October or November lights Little India. Both are religious observances rather than performances; dress conservatively and stay out of the way of processions.
George Town Festival and the rest
The George Town Festival, held in July and August, marks the anniversary of the 2008 UNESCO inscription with a month of theatre, music, dance, installation and exhibition across the town, much of it in heritage buildings and public spaces, with a significant international programme. It is what commissioned the 2012 street-art murals. Alongside it: the Penang Island Jazz Festival, Chingay processions with their enormous balanced flagpoles, Wesak Day, Hari Raya and the Nine Emperor Gods festival, when vegetarian food appears island-wide.
Festivals and Celebrations at a glance
| Chinese New Year | Kek Lok Si lit for ~30 nights — the island's best sight |
|---|---|
| Hungry Ghost | 7th lunar month — street opera with an empty front row |
| Thaipusam | Jan or Feb — second largest in Malaysia after Batu Caves |
| Arts month | George Town Festival, July–August, since 2008 |
| Also | Chingay, Wesak, Deepavali, Nine Emperor Gods |
| Book | Months ahead for Chinese New Year and the festival |