The highlight of this year's festival is its stronger connection between heritage and contemporary cultural life, creating spaces where residents and visitors can do more than simply “come and see” but can also participate, experience, and interact. Historical and cultural values, traditional crafts, local specialties, and cuisine are presented within interconnected spaces, creating a diverse experiential journey at Con Son – Kiep Bac.

Among these, the Heritage and Lotus Tea Experience Space is a highlight showcasing outstanding values of the World Heritage, destinations, and tourism products of Hai Phong. The space connects five sites within the World Heritage: Con Son Pagoda, Kiep Bac Temple, Thanh Mai Pagoda, Kinh Chu Cave, and Nham Duong Pagoda, while also introducing tourism programs and routes connecting destinations within and beyond the city.

Visitors explore information at the area introducing outstanding values of the World Heritage, destinations, and tourism products of Hai Phong.

Bringing the heritage sites together in one space provides residents and visitors with more information about the system of monuments, landscapes, and outstanding cultural values of the Yen Tu – Vinh Nghiem – Con Son, Kiep Bac Complex of Monuments and Scenic Landscapes. This helps gradually develop richer heritage exploration itineraries and broaden visitors' experiences beyond focusing on a single destination.

The traditional craft village space offers visitors an engaging and hands-on experience at the festival.

Alongside the heritage space, the traditional craft village area provides visitors with an accessible and visual introduction to handicrafts that have been preserved and passed down through generations. Around 300–400 typical products are on display, demonstrating the craftsmanship, refined skills, and creativity of artisans. The products come from traditional craft villages and trades such as Dong Giao wood carving, Chau Khe gold and silver craftsmanship, Thanh Lieu woodblock carving, Chu Dau pottery, as well as handicrafts, carving, embroidery, metalwork, casting, decorative repoussé, and calligraphy.

An artisan demonstrates decorative copper repoussé techniques at the festival space, offering visitors a hands-on experience of a traditional craft.

By directly observing the products and learning about the stories behind each craft and item, residents and visitors have an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the cultural values of traditional craft villages. This approach also helps transform traditional crafts from mere display items into an integral part of the festival's cultural experience.

Visitors try their hand at making green bean cakes, one of the famous specialties of the Xu Dong region, at the 2026 Autumn Con Son – Kiep Bac Festival.

The OCOP and specialty agricultural product space further expands visitors' experiences from cultural heritage to products closely associated with local livelihoods and production. According to the opening ceremony speech, the space features the participation of 36 businesses, cooperatives, and household businesses, showcasing around 220 product codes and categories, with nearly 19,000 product units.

The diverse range of OCOP products and specialty agricultural goods not only gives residents and visitors more choices but also helps showcase achievements in local production, processing, and product development. The festival thereby serves as a platform connecting culture and tourism with production and business activities, helping bring local products closer to consumers.

The Hai Phong Culinary Space offers visitors a variety of enjoyable culinary experiences.

One of the most accessible experiences likely to leave a lasting impression on visitors is the Hai Phong Culinary Space. A wide range of local dishes and specialties are featured, including rice rolls with pork patties, crab noodle soup, snakehead fish flat rice noodles, banh chung, banh giay, bun cha ruoi (vermicelli with fermented sandworm patties), spicy bread, banh gai, green bean cakes, chrysanthemum tea, and many other distinctive culinary products.

Cuisine is presented not merely as something to be enjoyed but also as a way of telling stories about Hai Phong's land and people. Each dish and specialty reflects distinctive aspects of local life, customs, and culture, providing visitors with another way to experience Hai Phong's identity through concrete and accessible encounters.

Water puppet performances are held at various times throughout the festival.

In addition to exhibition and experiential spaces, a series of art programs, water puppet shows, and cultural activities held throughout the Cultural, Tourism and Trade Promotion Week enrich the sightseeing experience for residents and visitors. Traditional and mass art performances, lion dances, ceremonial drums, traditional instrumental ensembles, hat cua dinh (communal house singing), cheo, cai luong, and other performances create a diverse cultural atmosphere throughout the festival.

In particular, water puppet shows featuring traditional acts such as herding buffalo, fishing, plowing and farming, dragon and phoenix dances, wrestling, and village festivals transport audiences back to the traditional villages of northern Vietnam, recreating scenes of everyday labor, community life, and distinctive Vietnamese customs and traditions.

This approach contributes to creating a multi-experience festival in which heritage is not only represented through monuments, structures, and historical stories but is also accessed through the arts, traditional crafts, local products, cuisine, and interactive activities. Local residents are both the beneficiaries of the festival and active participants in preserving, introducing, and promoting cultural values.

The traditional craft village space at the festival not only provides visitors with experiences of handicrafts but also helps convey values associated with history, culture, and community life.

According to the city's orientation, promoting heritage values is not merely about preserving the values of the past but also about integrating heritage into contemporary life, enabling it to become a destination, a cultural and tourism product, and a resource for development. The Cultural, Tourism and Trade Promotion Week as part of the Autumn 2026 Con Son – Kiep Bac Festival is organized around the connection between heritage and culture, tourism, traditional crafts, cuisine, and local specialties, bringing traditional values closer to residents and visitors.

With a people - and visitor-centered approach that places greater emphasis on experience and interaction, the Autumn 2026 Con Son – Kiep Bac Festival contributes to creating an open cultural space where heritage values can be experienced through multiple senses and become more closely connected with everyday life. In this way, the heritage continues to be promoted and appreciated not only during the festival but also through the awareness, emotions, and desire to explore shared by residents and visitors to the Con Son – Kiep Bac heritage area.