Culture & Leisure

Neon stage lights wash over costumed visitors, where families with face-painted children mingle with young adults in fantasy outfits. Music thumps across Victoria Harbour as the “Spooky Halloween” returns for its second edition. Yet attendees feel the event was a less crowded, more family-friendly alternative to Hong Kong’s iconic Lan Kwai Fong Halloween celebrations. Isabel Lee, a 20-year-old local girl, opted not to visit Lan Kwai Fong, citing crowd-related safety worries rooted in the past. “We just want to avoid that,”  Lee said. As Lee thought, Lan Kwai Fong was full. To manage visitor flow and prevent crowd crushes, organisers Live Nation Electronic Asia divided the area into three zones connected by single-direction walkways between each zone. Zone A and Zone B host Halloween carnival activities, while Zone C is the exclusive outdoor music festival area reserved for full-access ticket holders. All guests must clear a security checkpoint before entering the ticketed zones. Lo Wing-Yi, a 41‑year‑old local mother, said Lan Kwai Fong caters more to single adults and the harbour‑side venue works much better for families with children. Some visitors enjoy the Halloween vibe without purchasing tickets. A public buffer area between Zone A and Zone B, open to all visitors free of charge and fitted with large screens showing live stage feed. Artists’ performances kicked off at 6 pm. MIRROR performed “Rebound” alongside a medley of fast-tempo tracks. At 9:30 pm, MEOVV showcased their new original releases, plus covers of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and BLACKPINK’s “Kill This Love.”  The event runs from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. Full-access tickets cost HK$930, while Carnival passes cost HK$170 for adults and HK$50 for visitors under 17.

MONTREAL, Canada Sept. 26 - The Women Elite Road Race of the 2026 Union Cycliste Internationale Road World Championships started its longest race in history, covering 180.4 kilometres after the Union Cycliste Internationale changed its rules.   The championships ran for eight days from Sept. 20 to Sept. 27, in Montréal, Canada, featuring 13 separate races.  After raising the maximum distance for elite women’s world championship and Olympic road races from 160 km to 180 km, this year’s event has become the longest Women's World Road Cycling Championships since the women elite race was first introduced in 1958. The eight-lap course in Mount Royal circuit had passed through Côte de la Polytechnique with a gradient of over 11% and finished at the uphill of Avenue du Parc. In the final laps, the women's elite riders have to climb roughly 2,150 of the 2,570 metres total, testing riders' endurance.   Around 141 riders have joined the Women Elite Road Race on Sept. 26. Demi Vollering from the Netherlands won the championship, beating Katarzyna Niewiadoma in the race, while Elisa Longo Borghini took bronze. Amanda Spratt, an Australian 39-year-old rider, finished 39th, said her strategy to the added kilometres was to conserve energy from the very start by eating and drinking constantly. “I think it is not very hard with the distance in the legs and when you were just doing the climb once,”Spratt said.  “But it was definitely difficult for the last two laps, after making so much distance and laps,”she added.   Spratt considered it a fun race, despite hours of racing and the punishing laps of Mount Royal. “It was a hard race, but giving up is not really in my DNA.” she said. Around 500,000 audiences arrived at the Avenue du Parc for the eight-day competition. Sean Zimmer, a …