Vice Chairwoman of Yên Bái Provincial People's Committee Vũ Thị Hiền Hạnh (fifth from right) and festival director Lê Hải Yến receive the Gold Event Marketing Award 2023. — Photo courtesy of Yên Bái Provincial People's Committee

HÀ NỘI The Mường Lò Cultural and Tourism Festival has received the Gold award in the category of Best Arts & Cultural Event of Event Marketing Awards 2023 (EMA 2023).

The festival, which took place on September 24, 2022 at the Nghĩa Lộ Stadium in the northern province of Yên Bái, was organised by the Yên Bái Provincial People's Committee in collaboration with Newday Media JSC.

It was held to raise awareness of art of traditional xòe dance of the Thái ethnic minority in Mường Lò Village that was recognized as the intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO, and also to promote the village as a national tourist attraction.

The EMA 2023 awards were launched by Campaign Asia-Pacific, a leading media brand for advertising, marketing, and media professionals in the Asia-Pacific region.

The aim of the awards is to honour the regional business events community and celebrate its creativity and innovation.

Judged by a panel of global experts, every year, the awards receive hundreds of entries from leading organisations across the continent in the field of organising cultural, historical and artistic events.

The Mường Lò Cultural and Tourism Festival 2022's win marks the first time a representative from Việt Nam, Newday Media, has surpassed many big names in Asia to win the prestigious awards.

The InnerGlow 2022 event in Hong Kong (China) won the Silver award, and the GQ ART LAB? exhibition in China won the Bronze award.

Commenting on the Vietnamese festival, the organisers of EMA 2023 Awards wrote: “Understanding the challenges, the team came up with the idea of a great musical in combination with various folk music and ancient languages to unfold the story of the lives and culture of the Thái ethnicity.

"The event brought in over 20,000 visitors, and over three million TV viewers, and became the talk of the town in the months after the event."

The Mường Lò Cultural and Tourism Festival 2022 created a unique cultural and artistic space on an unprecedented scale in the northwest region. — VNA/VNS Photo Tuấn Anh

The Mường Lò Cultural and Tourism Festival 2022 created a unique cultural and artistic space on an unprecedented scale in the northwest region which was likened to a "living museum" preserving and awakening the thousand-year culture of the Thái people.

Pursuing a completely different direction from conventional festivals, the Thái xòe dance festival is a unique grand theatrical performance that exclusively uses traditional materials and are mostly performed in the Thái language by Thái dancers.

Modern technology such as 3D mapping, laser lighting, and matrix LEDs only serve as supportive tools to enhance and honour their rich cultural values.

The success of the festival has had a powerful impact on the media and tourism sector of the province. In September 2022, Yên Bái received 260,200 visitors, of which 6,600 were foreigners.

The tourism revenue was estimated to reach VNĐ201 billion (US$8,6 million), a 150 per cent increase compared to August 2022. These are impressive figures for a mountainous town with just over 68,000 inhabitants.

An aerial view of the Mường Lò Cultural and Tourism Festival 2022. — VNA/VNS Photo

"After the successful festival, we promptly prepared the submission for the Event Marketing Awards 2023. We are overjoyed that the event has been awarded the Gold award, which will encourage more attention from event and media professionals throughout Asia to this unique intangible cultural heritage of Việt Nam. This will generate more interest and spread the beauty of this heritage to the world," the director of the festival, Lê Hải Yến, said:

In 2018, Newday Media JSC won the Gold Stevie Award in the Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Events & Observances category for the organisation of the Sầm Sơn Beach Vacation Festival 2018.

In 2019, the Mường Lò Cultural and Tourism Festival 2019 also won a gold prize in the Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Travel & Tourism category of the 17th Stevie Awards. A mass xòe dance, which was performed by up to 5,000 people at the festival, secured a silver prize in the Community Involvement Programme of the Year category.

Xòe is a unique type of traditional dance that plays a significant role in the daily life of Thái ethnic communities. — VNA/VNS Photo

Xòe is a unique type of traditional dance associated with and plays a significant role in the daily life of Thái communities in the northwest of Việt Nam, especially in the provinces of Lai Châu, Điện Biên, Sơn La and Yên Bái. It is performed in various community activities, from festivals to funerals, as a symbol of hospitality.

The art of xòe dance was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021 by the UN culture agency. VNS