Lantau Island Events Calendar 2027
Everything Lantau Island has dated for 2027 — the monastery's lunar services, Tai O's opera months, Tung Chung's Hau Wong festival and the island's trail race — with the months that are not yet published named as such rather than left blank. February and October each carry a full month page; the rest are here in full.
Two calendars run through the year. The lunar-fixed temple calendar — Po Lin's services and the god-birthdays of Tai O and Tung Chung — is knowable years ahead. Everything else the island does is booked a few months out, so a month can be short here without being quiet.
Above this index sit two wider views: the Hong Kong events and festivals calendar, which lists every Hong Kong fixture we track whether or not it is on Lantau, and the 2026 events calendar, the same twelve months as they ran last year.
January 2027
2027 Lantau 50 — 54 km, 27 km and 16 km trail races
📅 Saturday, January 09, 2027 — 6:30 AM start for the 50 km, 6:40 AM for the 27 km and 16 km
The island's only 2027-dated race so far: a 6:30 AM start from Tung Chung, 54 km over the Keung Shan ridge and back over Lantau and Sunset Peaks — its first checkpoint is Ngong Ping itself, so you can watch the leaders come through the village at about 8 AM and still ride the cable car up afterwards.
📍 Man Tung Road Park, Tung Chung — the start for all three distances
Ngong Ping 360 × BLACK & WHITE — "A Nostalgic Christmas with a Taste of Hong Kong"
📅 Tuesday, November 03, 2026 – Sunday, January 10, 2027
The Christmas event's last ten days: the themed cabins and the 6-metre windmill stay up to 10 January, but the free milk-tea sessions finish on 26 December.
📍 Ngong Ping Village
January 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears, and the island's other January operators have not announced 2027 dates yet.
February 2027
📋 View all 3 events in February 2027
Three dates: the Lunar New Year holidays, Tai O's four nights of opera for the Earth God, and the monastery's seven-day retreat.
Lunar New Year on the plateau — 6, 8 and 9 February
📅 Saturday, February 6; Monday, February 8; Tuesday, February 9, 2027 — the three general holidays
Lunar New Year's Day is 6 February 2027, and the general holidays are the 6th, 8th and 9th: the second day falls on a Sunday this year, so the gazette substitutes the fourth day for it. The monastery keeps its usual 9 AM to 6 PM day throughout, and 7 February — the gap between the holiday days — is the day to come up.
📍 Po Lin Monastery and Ngong Ping Village
大澳福德誕神功戲 — Cantonese opera for the Earth God
📅 Tuesday, February 23 – Friday, February 26, 2027 (lunar 正月十八至廿一) · 正誕 Thursday, February 25
Seven performances of Cantonese opera for the Earth God over four nights, and no village has published a 2027 programme. The Cantonese opera guild, 八和會館, has booked this same window, 正月十八至廿一, in both 2025 and 2026, which is why the dates can be given at all. Four nights of opera in a bamboo theatre booked by the 值理會 of the Earth God's temple: the only week of the year when Tai O after dark is busier than Tai O at noon.
📍 Tai O
禪七法會 — the Chan retreat at Po Lin Monastery
📅 Saturday, February 27 – Saturday, March 6, 2027 (lunar 正月廿二至廿九)
The monastery's 禪七 runs from 27 February to 6 March, the window Po Lin prints as lunar 正月廿二至廿九 with its own Gregorian column beside it. Nothing else about the retreat is published: no hours, and no statement about who may attend. Po Lin's own sitting, the one week when the monastery is a working monastery rather than a visitor attraction, and the plateau is quiet at six in the morning.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau
March 2027
大澳土地誕 — the Earth God's birthday at Tai O
📅 Tuesday, March 9, 2027 (lunar 二月初二)
The quietest of Tai O's god-birthdays: no parade, no banner, just a table of offerings at the corner of the lane and the sound of a rehearsal from the theatre — the one festival you can attend by accident.
📍 Tai O
觀音誕清明水懺法會 — Water Repentance for Guanyin and Ching Ming
📅 Saturday, March 20 – Friday, March 26, 2027 (lunar 二月十三至十九)
Seven days of repentance chanting timed to Ching Ming — the week when the monastery is doing the thing it exists for, and visitors are welcome to stand at the back of the hall from 9 AM, when the monastery opens.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau
March 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears; the likeliest is the cable car's Easter programme, which the operator has not announced for 2027.
April 2027
Ching Ming on the plateau
📅 Monday, April 5, 2027 — the gazetted public holiday
Ching Ming week on the plateau: the monastery has just finished its repentance service. Ching Ming is a Monday this year.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau
大澳天后誕 — Tin Hau's birthday at Tai O
📅 Thursday, April 29, 2027 (lunar 三月廿三)
Tin Hau's birthday at the village's Tin Hau temple, founded in the Shunzhi reign and standing next to the Kwan Tai temple: the oldest Tin Hau hall on Lantau, and one of the eight opera festivals the Chinese Temples Committee records for Tai O. Tin Hau's day at Tai O is the fishermen's festival rather than the tourists': opera at the temple, and the salt pans and stilt houses at their least crowded on a weekday — 29 April 2027 is a Thursday.
📍 Tai O — the village's Tin Hau temple, next to the Kwan Tai temple
April 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears, and nothing else on the island is dated for April yet.
May 2027
釋迦佛誕大悲法會 (浴佛節) — the Buddha's Birthday service
📅 Friday, May 7 – Thursday, May 13, 2027 (lunar 四月初二至初八) · Buddha's Birthday holiday, Thursday, May 13
The Great Compassion Repentance for the Buddha's birthday, from the second to the eighth day of the fourth lunar month. Every element of the date comes from a different direction: the monastery prints the lunar rule, the observatory's table converts it, and the gazette names 13 May as a general holiday. The service closes on the holiday itself, so the 13th is both the last day of the chanting and the day you have off.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau
汾流天后誕 — the Fan Lau Tin Hau festival, kept at Tai O
📅 Friday, May 28, 2027 (lunar 四月廿三)
The Tin Hau festival of Fan Lau, a village at Lantau's south-western tip, is staged at Tai O instead — with opera and the flower-cannon draw the sources record for it. 八和會館's 2025 register books seven performances over 四月二十至廿三, in Tai O, under the title 大澳汾流天后寶誕. This is the date on the calendar where going to the right village means going to the wrong one: the opera is at Tai O, and Fan Lau has none.
📍 Tai O — not Fan Lau
May 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears, and nothing else on the island is dated for May yet.
June 2027
大澳端午龍舟遊涌 — the Tai O water parade
📅 Tuesday, June 8 and Wednesday, June 9, 2027 (lunar 五月初四 and 五月初五) · Tuen Ng gazetted on the 9th
The best free morning on Lantau: three fishing guilds tow the gods through Tai O's creeks from around 9 AM, the stilt houses burn incense as the boats pass, and by early afternoon the same three dragon boats are racing each other for the gods' amusement. Get the 8 AM bus 11 from Tung Chung; the village is full by 10.
📍 Tai O's stilt-house creeks
關帝龍船唱戲 — opera for Kwan Tai on the dragon-boat day
📅 Wednesday, June 9, 2027 (lunar 五月初五)
Kwan Tai's opera is the one performance staged because the dragon boats are out — the two observances share a day at Tai O, and the temple courtyard is where the crowd thins.
📍 Tai O — 關帝廟, next to the village's Tin Hau temple
June 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears; the ICH Office's guided visit to the water parade has not been announced for 2027.
July 2027
大澳楊侯誕神功戲 — eleven performances for Hau Wong
📅 Tuesday, July 6 – Sunday, July 11, 2027 (lunar 六月初三至初八) · 正誕 Friday, July 9
The biggest week in Tai O's year — eleven performances over six days, and on the birthday itself the guilds auction the sacred offerings (競投聖品) at the evening banquet, which is the closest a visitor gets to how a fishing village funds its own religion.
📍 Tai O — the bamboo theatre on the open ground beside 龍田邨, where the stage has been built since 2015
觀音誕大悲法會 — Guanyin's birthday Great Compassion Repentance
📅 Friday, July 16 – Thursday, July 22, 2027 (lunar 六月十三至十九)
Seven days of Guanyin chanting at the monastery, timed to the hottest fortnight of the year: go early, and take the shaded Wisdom Path walk while the hall is in session.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau
July 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears, and nothing else on the island is dated for July yet.
August 2027
盂蘭報恩法會 — Ullambana, the monastery's service for the dead
📅 Tuesday, August 3 – Monday, August 9, 2027 (lunar 七月初二至初八) · 施放水幽 water-release rite, Tuesday, August 10 (lunar 七月初九)
The month the monastery prays for the dead: seven days of Ullambana chanting ending with the release of the water ghosts — the one Po Lin service that is explicitly about the sea, which is what everyone on this island used to live off.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau
August 2027 has no page of its own yet: one dated entry so far, and it is above. Lantau's other August festival cannot be dated yet — 沙螺灣's Hung Shing festival was moved off 二月十三 in 1968 and has been settled each year by village notice since, and no 2027 notice is up.
September 2027
Mid-Autumn on the island — Tai O and Ngong Ping after dark
📅 Wednesday, September 15, 2027 (lunar 八月十五) · the gazetted holiday is the day after, Thursday 16 September
Mid-Autumn is when Tai O's stilt houses are at their best after dark and the plateau gets its clearest night sky of the year — come on the 15th, not the 16th holiday, and stay for the moonrise over the Buddha. The Tai O lantern evening is dated annually and had not been announced when this was written.
📍 Tai O and Ngong Ping, Lantau
東涌侯王誕 — five days of opera for Tung Chung's Hau Wong
📅 Thursday, September 16 – Monday, September 20, 2027 (lunar 八月十六至二十) · 正日 Saturday, September 18
Tung Chung's own festival, and the biggest Hau Wong celebration in Hong Kong: five days of opera in a 1,000-seat bamboo theatre, a lion-and-drum procession on the 18th, and the flower-cannon auction that is unique to this village — the temple is at Sha Tsui Tau, a short walk from Tung Chung MTR station, which no other Lantau festival can say.
📍 Tung Chung — 侯王宮 (Hau Wong Temple) at 沙咀頭, with the bamboo theatre on the ground opposite the temple
September 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears; the rural committees date their Mid-Autumn lantern and lion displays each year and have not set 2027.
October 2027
📋 View all 3 events in October 2027
Three dates: Chung Yeung on the 8th, the monastery's Guanyin service from the 12th, and the opera patron's birthday at Tai O on the 27th.
Chung Yeung — 8 October
📅 Friday, October 8, 2027 (lunar 九月初九) · the general holiday
Chung Yeung is the day Hong Kong climbs; on Lantau that means Lantau Peak from Pak Kung Au and the Wisdom Path ridge. The monastery's own 重陽 service is later in the month — it runs 12–18 October.
📍 Lantau Peak and the Wisdom Path ridge, Ngong Ping — the climb starts at Pak Kung Au, on the Lantau Trail
觀音誕重陽大悲法會 — Guanyin and Chung Yeung service
📅 Tuesday, October 12 – Monday, October 18, 2027 (lunar 九月十三至十九) · seven dates inclusive
Guanyin's autumn service, four days after the Chung Yeung holiday — seven days when the monastery is full of families who have come up the hill for both the graves and the goddess.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau
大澳華光誕 — the opera patron's birthday
📅 Wednesday, October 27, 2027 (lunar 九月廿八)
A festival that has almost stopped: the opera patron's temple at 橫坑村 is a walk from Tai O past the salt pans, and on his birthday a handful of parishioners still turn up — go for the walk and the 1896 building, not for a crowd.
📍 Tai O — 華光古廟 at 橫坑村, a walk past the salt pans
November 2027
No Lantau date is published for November 2027 yet. TransLantau by UTMB has not announced its 2027 edition (the 2026 races ran 13–15 November), and Ngong Ping 360 has not announced its 2027 Christmas event (the 2026 one opened on 3 November).
December 2027
天壇大佛周年紀念水陸息災法會 — the Water and Land service for the Buddha's anniversary
📅 Thursday, December 9 – Thursday, December 16, 2027 (lunar 十一月十二至十九) · eight days
The monastery's largest service of the year and the only one tied to the statue itself — eight days of Water-and-Land ritual for the Buddha's anniversary, with the great bronze figure lit after dark. The one December date on Lantau that is about the Buddha rather than about Christmas.
📍 Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau — the service is held at the monastery below the Tian Tan Buddha
Christmas on the plateau — Ngong Ping Village and Po Lin
📅 Saturday, December 25 and Monday, December 27, 2027 · Christmas Day and the first weekday after Christmas, both general holidays
Christmas at Ngong Ping: the monastery keeps its 9 AM to 6 PM day, the vegetarian kitchen opens at 11:30 AM, and the 27th is a quieter day to come up than the 25th.
📍 Ngong Ping Village and Po Lin Monastery, Ngong Ping plateau — see Ngong Ping 360 for getting up to the village
December 2027 has no page of its own yet: two dated entries so far, and both are above. It gets its own page once a third dated entry clears, and nothing else on the island is dated for December yet.