Hungry Ghost Festival 2025: Demons of Our Times

This year, the free Festival is a raucous invitation to resist and combat the demons of our times.

On the fifteenth night of the seventh lunar month, the gates of hell are thought to open and the most anguished ghosts breach the boundary between realms, seeking solace amongst the living. Rituals of food, fire, and performance are offered to heal these souls and then send them on their way. Observed across the Chinese diaspora for centuries, it held particular significance in early California where the celebration offered immigrants comfort and a way to honor the forgotten amid treacherous migration journeys, untimely deaths, and heartbreaking separations.

CCC reimagines this age-old tradition for the here and now and for all who carry rage and sorrow in a time of escalated attacks on marginalized communities and human dignity, offering a high spirited, family-friendly evening of boisterous, cross-cultural music; ritual installations; a colorful Ghost King Parade; and more.

The Ghost King Parade at 4pm features a stunning, 14-foot-tall Ghost King figure, made specially for the San Francisco festival by a traditional paper craft master in Hong Kong. A fantastic line up of musical acts bring the fire throughout the evening including DJ Livv, Maya Songbird, Ash Bricky, LoCura Musica, The Rice Rockettes, Kristi Oshiro: Queer Taiko, and traditional Cantonese Opera by Baht Wor Charity Foundation.

Outdoor, ritual installations commissioned by CCC will offer contemporary interpretations of Festival themes, featuring local and international artists from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.

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Hungry Ghost Festival 2025: Demons of Our Times takes place throughout Chinatown as follows:

Ghost King Parade:
Kicking off the Festival at 4pm at 667 Grant Avenue, the Lotus Tao Culture Association leads a procession through the streets of Chinatown, bringing the community together to guide lost souls and offer blessings. The centerpiece of the procession is a stunning, 14-foot-tall Ghost King figure, made specially for the San Francisco festival by a traditional paper craft master in Hong Kong. The public is invited to dress up and join the parade.

Music Performances:
From 4-9pm, Portsmouth Square comes alive with noisy merriment that brings the fire for ghosts and people alike. Main Stage shapeshifters include:

* DJ Livv (4-4:30pm and spinning during transitions): Born and raised in the Bay Area, DJ Livv is consistently ranked among the highest in viewership within the global music category on Twitch.
* Maya Songbird (4:30-5pm): A genre-blending artist with 15+ years in the underground music scene, including appearances at the Multiverse Festival and Island Festival. Retro-futuristic soul, funk, and DIY pop.
* Baht Wor Charity Foundation (5:10-5:40pm): A local Cantonese Opera group founded in 1956. The colorful spectacle of Cantonese Opera is the traditional musical offering of the Hungry Ghost Festival.
* Ash Bricky (5:50-6:20pm): A Bay Area-based musical collective blending raw energy, fierce identity, and radical politics into a genre-defying sound the group calls Indigenous Trans Folk Punk.
* Kristi Oshiro: Queer Taiko (6:30-7pm): A multi-cultural and intergenerational group of LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies committed to building trans and queer community, representation and visibility through Japanese taiko drumming.
* LoCura Musica (7:15-8pm): With four powerhouse women at the helm, the group's live shows are a soul-stirring, punk-edged party that mixes cajon-driven rhythms with multilingual lyrics to reflect the unique intersection of cultures in the Bay Area.
* The Rice Rockettes (8:15-9pm): San Francisco's premier Asian & Pacific Islander drag queen troupe and house formed in the summer of 2009.

Art Activations:
* Lotus Tao Culture Association will create a community altar at Portsmouth Square.
* Throughout Chinatown, outdoor, ritual installations commissioned by CCC will offer contemporary interpretations of Festival themes, featuring local and international artists from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.
* The public can also participate in various art activity stations, including the Demons Yearbook Station. Demons Yearbook is a CCC art education project in collaboration with San Francisco high schools and Inky Fingers Print Collective. This past spring, 100 students transformed personal and collective hauntings (unseen and unspoken struggles) into zines and comics. The powerful anthology of the ghosts, demons, and spirits that define their realities will be celebrated during the event, and the public will get a chance to customize their very own copy of the Yearbook.

Chinatown Shopping and Art Challenge:
Throughout Ghost Month from August 1-23 and on the day of the Festival, the public is encouraged to support Chinatown businesses and shop at participating stores to collect special Hungry Ghost stamps and win a prize. Stamps can also be collected at art stations on the day of the Festival.

The event is made possible with sponsorship from the California Natural Resources Agency, California Department of Social Services/Stop the Hate, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, with additional support from San Francisco Grants for the Arts, Crankstart Foundation, Battery Powered, Fleishhacker Foundation, Portsmouth Square Garage, CCC Contemporaries, and San Francisco Recreation and Parks.