There is a new arts festival brewing in Penang, built by arts practitioners from the ground up, bringing together original works in theatre, music, and dance within a shared space.
The Penang Heritage Arts Festival (PHAF) will run from May 1 to 10 at Bangunan UAB on Gat Lebuh China in George Town.
According to media reports, the roots of the festival trace back to 2019, when a group of arts practitioners came together for their first multi-genre collaboration. Conversations with the state government followed, but momentum was eventually halted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, with support from Yayasan Hasanah, the “by artists, for artists” festival is finally in motion.
Truly, more arts festivals in Penang is a good thing. It creates platforms, builds audiences, and reminds us that the arts are alive and evolving.
Among the highlights at the festival are The Legend of Rani Dhobi by the Penang Players, a choral presentation by Pulse and Voices of Penang, and a dramatic recital by theatre artiste Himanshu Bhatt titled Beyond the Sea. There’s also Light Bites, a stand-up comedy segment, alongside music performances by the Penang Jazz Society and the USM Music Department Ensemble Project. The dance programme features Sasanakala and Nartana.
One of the festival collaborators shared this vision: "We want Penang to develop a thriving theatrical, musical and dance ecosystem, so that George Town is recognised as one of Malaysia’s key cultural cities.”
It’s an ambitious and admirable goal.
And with a name that suggests scale, intention, and even legacy, the Penang Heritage Arts Festival certainly sounds like something to look forward to.
Except… no one seemed to know about it until it was almost happening.
And that’s where the confusion begins.
Because festivals don’t usually arrive like plot twists.
Established platforms like George Town Festival, Good Vibes Festival, Rainforest World Music Festival, or even Short+Sweet Festival Malaysia don’t just drop a lineup out of nowhere. They introduce themselves first. They create a sense of arrival—this is coming, this is ours, this is something to gather around—before unveiling the programme.
That process isn’t just about publicity. It’s about building legitimacy. It tells the arts community: you are part of this moment, even if you’re not on the lineup.
So when something like the Penang Heritage Arts Festival appears only at the point of its events—when the “festival” is discovered rather than announced—it raises a fair question: Was this conceived as a festival… or did it become one after the fact?
Because the distinction matters.
A festival implies openness. Reach. A shared cultural space.
It invites anticipation, participation, even critique, before it happens.
But when practitioners within the same ecosystem are hearing about it at the same time as the general public, it doesn’t feel like a collective moment. It feels… contained.
If this is meant to be an artist-led initiative, why didn’t more artists know about it?
If this is meant to represent Penang’s arts community, why does that very community seem surprised?
And if the intention is to build something grassroots and inclusive, then shouldn’t the groundwork reflect that, through early conversations, open calls, or at the very least, visibility?
To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with a group of artists coming together to create and present work under a shared banner. That kind of initiative is necessary, especially in a fragmented arts landscape as Penang.
But calling it a festival carries weight.
It signals something larger than a network. Something more expansive than a circle of collaborators.
Without that foundation, the label risks feeling less like a platform, and more like a decision made after the programming was already in place. And perhaps that’s what people are responding to. Not the work itself. Not even the intention. But the gap between what it calls itself… and how it was introduced. Because a festival is not just a collection of events.
A festival is a conversation with a community. And that conversation should begin long before opening week.
Still, intent matters.
And if the Penang Heritage Arts Festival is truly driven by artists who want to build something meaningful for the local scene, then perhaps this is simply a beginning finding its footing. But beginnings also reveal priorities.
A quick look at the festival’s social media presence shows fewer than 100 followers, with the account itself only set up less than a month ago. For something positioned as a festival, that level of visibility raises questions—not about the quality of the work, but about how (and how far) the conversation was meant to travel.
Because publicity isn’t just about numbers. It’s about reach. It’s about who gets to know, and who gets left out.
Every festival has to start somewhere. The real question is not how it began, but whether, moving forward, it can grow into something the wider arts community recognises, participates in, and feels a part of.
Because Penang doesn’t just need more festivals. It needs festivals that feel like they belong to everyone.
And that’s something worth building—together.
If you’re interested in attending the Penang Heritage Arts Festival, you can visit their event page here or get the tickets here.
About the writer:
Do Re Mi is mildly disappointed in humanity and entirely comfortable saying it out loud. He doesn’t expect brilliance, just a basic level of competence. When even that’s missing, he judges. Openly. Proudly. Firmly rooted in his own perspective, he has little patience for nonsense. He’s not here to inspire, he’s here to point out what’s not working, and why that’s your problem.
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