This year's Hung Kings' Temple Festival in Phu Tho Province will be a special event as it will honor and receive world intangible cultural heritage certification.
The event, due to be held from April 13-19, 2013 by the Phu Tho Province People's Committee, will attract the participation of nine provinces (Lang Son, Ha Nam, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Dak Lak, Binh Dinh, Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, and Tien Giang). The festival will host a program to honor and receive world intangible cultural heritage certification for Hung Kings' worship rituals in Phu Tho Province, the worshiping rites of the Hung Kings and Mother Au Co and a Hung Kings' commemoration.The festival will also host a variety of cultural and sport activities that are to take place at the city of Viet Tri to the festival's center in Hung Kings' Temple and its environs. There will be processions from the temple's environs, cultural camps, art performances, exhibitions of provincial specialties, folk performances, the third festival of Phu Tho Province's Xoan singing and folk songs, a banh chung (square glutinous rice cake filled with green bean paste and fat pork) and banh day (a kind of rice cake) making contest, a Hung Kings' worship ritual photo exhibition, an orchid exhibition, and sport activities and games like volleyball, chess, wrestling and crossbow shooting. The Phu Tho Province People's Committee has instructed relevant local authorities to prepare Hung Vuong Square for the festival and assure security before, during and after the festival takes place. The Hung Kings' Temple precinct and Lac Long Quan Temple and other festival infrastructure are fully prepared for the event.The province also told relevant authorities to finalize plans for assuring security, arranging stalls and service points, posting prices of goods and services, and arranging people to assist visitors in implementing Hung Kings' worship rituals.