Is Hoi An Memories Show worth it? Honest first-timer review

If you’ve spent any time in Hoi An you’ll have seen the flyers for this, and probably had someone at your hotel try to sell you a ticket for it.

So here’s my honest take on the Hoi An Memories Show, including whether it’s actually worth an evening of your trip, which ticket to buy, and the couple of things I’d want to know before booking.

The short version is that I think it’s worth doing once, mostly because there’s nothing else in Vietnam quite like it in terms of sheer size. But plenty of people come out of it feeling let down, and I don’t think those people are being unfair.

Nothing in the show is performed live. The music is a recording and the cast mimes along to it, and if you walked in expecting a proper theatre production, that’s going to bother you for the whole hour.

The other thing I’d sort out before you book is the ticket, because there are three of them, they cost quite different amounts, and the seats aren’t numbered, which trips up more people than anything else about this place.

• Quick Answer: The Hoi An Memories Show, or Ký Ức Hội An, runs from 8pm to 9pm every evening except Tuesday, at Hoi An Memories Land on Cồn Hến island inside the Hoi An Impression Theme Park. It’s an hour long, five acts, more than 500 performers, on an outdoor stage of around 25,000 square metres. Adult tickets are roughly 600,000 VND for Eco, 750,000 for High and 1,200,000 for VIP, though agents in town often sell the same seats cheaper. It’s worth going once for the scale of it, but the music is pre-recorded and the cast mimes, which is where most of the bad reviews come from.
• The three ticket tiers:
  • Eco: the front section, closest to the stage, on backless wooden benches. The cheapest.
  • High: the middle of the grandstand, raised up, with the widest view of the stage. No roof.
  • VIP: the top, with padded seats, fans and a roof over you. Only about 136 of them.
  • Seats aren’t numbered within your tier, so what time you walk in decides where you end up sitting.
• Times and days:
  • The Hoi An Memories Show time is 8pm to 9pm, but the park opens at 4pm and the mini shows start at 5pm. There are sixteen of them, about ten minutes apart.
  • The main show is 8pm to 9pm, one hour, no interval.
  • Be in the grandstand by 7:30pm if you want any say in where you sit.
  • No show on Tuesdays. A surprising number of reviews say Monday, and they’re wrong.
• Prices:
  • Around 600,000 / 750,000 / 1,200,000 VND for adults, at the official rate.
  • Children under a metre go free. From 1m to 1.4m it’s roughly 200,000 to 600,000 depending on tier. Anyone over 1.4m pays the adult price.
  • The official site advertises from about 450,000, and the ticket shops near the Japanese Bridge sell packages that include the boat over.
• Worth knowing:
  • It’s outdoors and only the VIP section has a roof. They hand out plastic ponchos if it rains.
  • The English subtitles are on a screen off to one side, so it’s better to sit centrally.
  • Finding a car home at 9pm is the worst bit of the whole evening.

You’ll notice I’ve linked to a few hotels and activities I used or recommend, you can even highlight any text to check prices and book instantly. If you make a booking through them, I receive a small commission, which really helps support the work I do here, at no additional cost to you.

So Is the Hoi An Memories Show Worth It?

Yes, the Hoi An Memories Show is worth it once, if you’ve got three days here or more.

The stage is about the size of a football pitch and it sits out in the open with the river behind it, and at various points there are several hundred people on it at the same time along with fire and water and a lot of lighting.

I can’t think of anything else in Vietnam that operates on that scale, and honestly the scale is most of what you’re paying for.

There’s a wedding sequence in the middle where the whole stage fills up and it’s hard not to enjoy that.

What you’re not getting is live performance, and I want to be clear about that because it’s the single thing that decides whether people love this or resent it.

The score comes off a recording, the singing is mimed, and some of the group choreography is closer to organised walking than dancing. If you go in thinking theatre, you’ll notice within about five minutes and then you won’t be able to stop noticing. If you go in thinking of it more like a stadium opening ceremony, you’ll probably have a lovely time.

I wouldn’t plan a short trip around it though. If you’ve only got two nights in Hoi An, the Ancient Town after dark is free and I’d honestly rather have that evening. On four or five days it’s a good use of one of them.

The Tickets, Which Are the Confusing Bit

Hoi An Memories Show tickets come in three tiers, Eco, High and VIP, and they’re spaced far enough apart in price that people spend ages agonising over which one to get.

Eco is the front section, closest to the stage and lowest down. High is the middle of the grandstand, raised, and it gives you the widest view. VIP is the top tier with padded seats, fans and a roof, and there are only around 136 of those.

Which one I’d buy

High, if you’re asking me. The stage is very wide and the show has things happening at both ends of it at the same time, so being up a bit and in the middle lets you actually see the thing the way it was put together.

That said, Eco is fine, and it’s cheaper, and you’re close enough to see faces and costumes properly, which is its own thing. The catch with Eco is the bench. There’s no back to it, and an hour on a backless wooden bench is a long hour if your back isn’t great. Worth knowing before you decide it’s the bargain option.

VIP gets you comfort and a roof. It doesn’t get you a better view, and I’d hate for anyone to pay that assuming it does. In October or November when it might rain, or in June when it’s absolutely roasting, comfort might be exactly what you want, and that’s a perfectly good reason to buy it. Just not the view.

Your arrival time matters more than your ticket

This is the bit that catches people out, and it’s caught me out too. The seats aren’t numbered. You’re buying a section, not a seat, and within your section it’s whoever gets there first.

So somebody who paid for High and wanders in at ten to eight is going to end up further back and having a worse evening than somebody who paid for Eco and sat down at seven.

If you’re going to spend more on the ticket, you need to spend the time as well, otherwise you’ve paid extra for nothing.

What it costs, and where to buy

The official Hoi An Memories Show ticket price is around 600,000 VND for Eco, 750,000 for High and 1,200,000 for VIP. Kids under a metre are free, between 1m and 1.4m it’s somewhere between 200,000 and 600,000 depending on the tier, and once they’re over 1.4m they pay full price like everyone else.

You’ll see lower numbers all over the place though, and they’re real. The official Vietnamese site quotes from about 450,000, the booking platforms discount, and those little ticket shops around the Japanese Bridge sell packages that throw in the boat across to the island.

Buying from an agent in town often works out cheaper than the official website, which isn’t usually how these things go, but it is here.

If you’ve got a bit of extra money floating around, I’d put it towards the dinner buffet or towards booking a car home in advance, both of which improve the evening more than VIP seats do.

What the Show Is Actually Like

Five acts, an hour, no interval, and it works through four hundred years of Hoi An, from a little fishing village to a busy trading port and then out into modern times.

There’s the wedding I mentioned, a section on silk and lantern making, and a stretch about the Chinese and Japanese merchants arriving. A weaver character runs through the whole thing and ties it together, which is more effort at storytelling than these enormous outdoor productions usually make.

The English subtitles are on a screen off to one side, which sounds like a small thing and isn’t. If you end up over on the far side you’ll be reading at an angle, or you’ll give up on them, and the middle acts are pretty hard to follow without them. Sitting centrally sorts that out, and it’s another reason I’d go for High.

When to Turn Up, and What Else Is There

The Hoi An Memories Show time is 8pm to 9pm, but the park opens at 4pm and the mini shows start at 5pm. There are sixteen of them dotted around the Hoi An Impression Theme Park, roughly ten minutes apart, in the recreated Japanese and Chinese quarters.

They’re fine. A couple of them don’t really match the tone of the main show at all, and if you skipped every single one you wouldn’t be missing much. But they’re included, so you may as well see a few.

Half six is roughly when I’d get there. That gives you a walk around the park, two or three mini shows, time to eat something, and a seat by half seven with an actual choice of where to sit. Turn up at eight and you’re shuffling along a dark row looking for a gap, which isn’t a great start to the evening.

Beyond the mini shows there isn’t much to do in the park. Souvenir shops, food stalls, a couple of bars, all priced the way you’d expect when nobody can leave. I’d eat in town beforehand unless you’ve bought the buffet package.

One evening I’d avoid completely is a lantern festival night. The show tends to sell out on those anyway, and the Old Town shuts to traffic and turns its street lights off, which is where you want to be that night. The dates for the year are in the Hoi An lantern festival guide.

Getting There, and the Bit Nobody Mentions

Hoi An Memories Land is at 200 Nguyễn Tri Phương on Cồn Hến, the island out in the middle of the river, about ten minutes from the Ancient Town. You can walk over the bridge from the Cẩm Nam side, take a Grab, or use the park’s own free boat, which is much the nicest way to arrive and doesn’t cost anything.

Going home is the problem. A couple of thousand people all leave at nine o’clock, drivers don’t reliably come over to that side of the bridge, and the app prices jump the second the show ends.

Book a car for quarter past nine before you go in, or just walk back over the bridge and pick something up on the town side. It takes about ten minutes and it’s easier than queueing.

If It Rains

The Hoi An Memories Show goes ahead in the rain and only VIP has a roof over it.

They hand out plastic ponchos at the gate, which do work, and which produce a fairly depressing mountain of rubbish by the end of a wet night. Bring your own if you happen to have one.

This is also the one solid argument for VIP tickets, so if you’re here in the wet months and you don’t fancy sitting through an hour of rain, that’s the tier.

When I’d Skip It

If you’ve got two nights in Hoi An, I’d give this a miss. It eats the evening from about six until half nine once you count getting there and getting home, and on a trip that short I’d want that time in town.

I’d skip it if live music and live singing are the point for you, because the recording really isn’t something you stop hearing once you’ve noticed it.

And if you or whoever you’re travelling with can’t sit on a hard bench for an hour, either budget for VIP or leave it off the list, because Eco and High are both benches and there’s no getting around that.

Final Thoughts

Buy High, get there around half six, be sitting down by half seven, and have a car booked for quarter past nine. That’s the whole thing.

The bit I’d do differently is the timing. I didn’t take the unnumbered seating seriously enough and ended up further back in my own section than I needed to be, which is such an easy thing to avoid and quite annoying to get wrong when the ticket wasn’t cheap.

You’ll be back in town by half nine with the evening not quite finished, and what’s still open at that point is in the Hoi An at night guide. If the whole thing doesn’t appeal, the lantern boat ride costs a fraction of this and the boats run until about half nine anyway, and the rest of what’s competing for that same evening is over in activities in Hoi An.

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