Lune Show in Hoi An: Teh Dar Bamboo Circus Tickets, Showtimes and Getting There (2026)

By Anh Khoa Hoi An·84 Phan Chau Trinh, Hoi An·Updated 27 Oct 2026

Most evenings in Hoi An follow the same script: lanterns, a boat on the Hoai River, a bowl of cao lau, the night market. The Lune show in Hoi An breaks that script for one hour. Thirteen metres of bamboo dome, a round stage, a troupe of young acrobats climbing poles that bend under them, and a band playing gongs, bamboo flutes and buffalo-horn trumpets close enough to feel through the seat.

Officially the show is called Teh Dar, and the theatre is the Hoi An Lune Center for the Performing Arts. Travellers mostly just call it “the Lune show” or “the bamboo circus”. It is a nine-minute walk from our shop on Phan Chau Trinh, and from customers we keep hearing the same two questions: which days is it on, and can I ride my scooter there. The second answer surprises people, so it gets its own section below.

What the Lune show in Hoi An actually is

Teh Dar is a contemporary circus about the hill peoples of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, the plateau around Da Lat, Buon Ma Thuot and Kon Tum. The title comes from the K’ho language and means “going around in a circle”: the circle of the village dance around a fire, of the seasons, of birth, death and return. There is no spoken dialogue at all. The story is carried by bodies, bamboo and live music, which is why an audience from twenty countries can sit in the same dome and all follow it.

It is made by Lune Production, a Ho Chi Minh City company founded in 2012 that also created A O Show (now at the Saigon Opera House) and Lang Toi – My Village (now in Hanoi). The creative team is the same across all three: director Tuan Le, a juggler and the only Vietnamese artist we know of to have performed with Cirque du Soleil; music director Nguyen Nhat Ly; and artistic director Nguyen Lan Maurice, trained at the Vietnam National Circus School. Before settling in Hoi An, Teh Dar toured French and European stages for several months up to 2020, which is where the “Vietnamese Cirque du Soleil” label comes from.

What you actually see: performers stacking themselves on bamboo frames that wobble deliberately, long poles and baskets turned into a jungle, a hunt, a moonlit courtship, masks, and a village circle that keeps returning as the show’s motif. The musicians play live on stage: gongs, drums, bamboo instruments and a buffalo-horn trumpet, sounds that most Vietnamese people from the lowlands have never heard in person.

Showtimes 2026: which days Teh Dar plays

There is one performance a day, at 6:00 PM, lasting about 60 minutes. The Da Nang tourism portal lists it as daily except Mondays and Fridays, and most ticket sellers show the same pattern: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Lune Production publishes its calendar date by date, and dates can drop out around holidays, private bookings or maintenance, so look at the official calendar for your exact night before you plan dinner around it.

The box office at the theatre is open 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM and takes cash and card. Plan to arrive at least 30 minutes before the show: if you booked online you still need to check in and collect a physical ticket, and the doors close once the drums start. The show is indoors, so rain does not cancel it, which makes it one of the few genuinely good things to do on a wet October or November evening in Hoi An.

Tickets and seats: aah, ooh or wow?

Seats are sold in three classes with Lune’s playful names. These are the prices published for Hoi An in 2026 by the Da Nang tourism portal and the ticket resellers we checked in October; the adult rate applies from age 12 or 1.4 m tall, the child rate from age 5 to 12.

*One Hoi An hotel lists the wow! child seat at 1,200,000₫ rather than 1,120,000₫. The difference is small, but if you are booking a family, check the final total on the booking page.

Which class to buy? With only 299 seats wrapped around a round stage, nobody is far away, and the cheapest aah! seats still see everything. The more expensive classes put you closer to the ring, where bamboo poles swing within a couple of metres of the front row and you feel the drums in your chest. If you have only one evening and care about the music, ooh! is a reasonable middle. If you are on a backpacker budget, aah! is genuinely fine. The seating plan on the booking page shows exactly which rows belong to which class.

Where to buy: at the box office on the day (good on a Tuesday in low season, risky on a Saturday in July), on Lune Production’s own site luneproduction.com, or through a reseller. If you prefer to book with free cancellation and an app ticket, Teh Dar tickets on GetYourGuide were listed at the same 700,000₫ starting price as the box office when we checked.

Inside the bamboo dome at Lune Center Hoi An

The theatre is half the reason to go. The Hoi An Lune Center sits at the very tip of An Hoi islet, inside Dong Hiep Park, where the little Hoai River meets the Thu Bon. Its address is 1A Nguyen Phuc Chu, at the far end of the street from An Hoi Bridge. The dome was designed to look like a full moon rising over the water (“lune” is French for moon), and from the Bach Dang riverbank at dusk that is exactly how it reads.

The numbers are modest: a site of 459 m², a bamboo dome 24.2 m across and 13 m high, a round stage in the middle and 299 seats climbing around it like a small amphitheatre. Lune opened the centre in February 2018 as the company’s first venue of its own; it once rotated several Lune shows, but since reopening after the pandemic in late 2022 Teh Dar has been the one playing here. Because it is so small, the acoustics are intimate rather than loud: you hear the breath of the flute player as much as the gongs.

Photography and filming are not allowed during the performance. Take your pictures of the dome outside, then put the phone away and watch.

A few house rules worth knowing: no photos or video during the show, no outside food or drink, and children under five are not admitted at all, even on a parent’s lap. Latecomers may be held at the door until a suitable moment, which in a show built on rhythm can be a long wait.

Getting to the Lune show in Hoi An: the walking-zone catch

Here is the part most guides skip. The Lune Center is inside Hoi An’s pedestrian zone, and the pedestrian hours cover the show. From about 15:00 until 21:00 in winter / 21:30 in summer, the Old Town streets, including Nguyen Phuc Chu on An Hoi islet, are closed to motorbikes and cars. Phan Chau Trinh, the street our shop is on, has its own barrier that in practice comes down around 17:30. In other words: you cannot ride a scooter to the door of the dome at 17:30. Some older guides mention parking inside Dong Hiep Park; we have not been able to confirm that a motorbike can reach it during walking hours, so do not plan on it.

From our shop at 84 Phan Chau Trinh it is 700 m and about nine minutes on foot by Google Maps: down to Tran Phu, over An Hoi Bridge, then left along Nguyen Phuc Chu past the lantern stalls to the dome. Plenty of customers rent a bike in the afternoon for the beach or Tra Que village, drop it back at the shop around 17:00 or park it nearby, and simply walk to the show. For the full list of lots, prices and ban hours, see our Hoi An bike parking guide. The theatre’s coordinates, if your map app struggles with the address, are 15.8751, 108.3290.

Do you need a licence for the ride there?

For an evening in the Old Town, barely any engine is needed, which is good news for anyone without a Vietnamese licence or an International Driving Permit. In short: bicycles and electric bicycles need no licence at all. Mopeds under 50cc and low-speed electric scooters built to stay under 50 km/h (the VinFast Evo200 Lite in our fleet is one) fall into Vietnam’s moped class, which also needs no licence, though the rider must be at least 16. Anything above that, including a normal 110–125cc scooter or a faster electric bike, needs an A1 licence or a valid IDP, and riding one without it can void your travel insurance.

We have written the details out properly, with the fines, in do electric motorbikes need a licence in Vietnam and renting a bike in Hoi An without a licence. For a show night specifically, a bicycle or e-bicycle is honestly the smartest choice.

Teh Dar or the Hoi An Memories show?

Hoi An has two big-name evening shows and people often ask which one to pick. They could hardly be more different, and because Teh Dar starts at 18:00 and Memories later in the evening, some visitors manage both on the same night.

If you want to feel the performers’ effort from two metres away, choose Teh Dar. If you want scale and a story about the town you are standing in, choose Memories. Our Hoi An Memories show guide covers tickets and how to ride there.

Is the Lune show in Hoi An worth it? An honest take

For most people, yes. It is one of the few things in Hoi An that is not about lanterns, tailors or food, it is short enough not to eat the whole evening, and the ticket price buys a show that has played to European theatre audiences. On the big booking sites it sits close to five stars, and it is the show our own customers come back talking about most.

It is not for everyone, though. There is no narration, so if you need a clear plot you may spend some scenes guessing. The drums are loud, which some small children love and some find frightening, and under-fives cannot come at all. And at 700,000₫ for the cheapest seat it costs more than a day of food in Hoi An, so if your budget is tight, a free evening on the Hoai riverbank is no consolation prize. Our verdict: if you have two or more nights in town and the show falls on one of them, book it.

A Lune show evening in Hoi An, hour by hour

This is the evening we suggest to customers who ask:

Eat after the show rather than before: the restaurants along Nguyen Phuc Chu and the night market are busiest at 18:00 and calmer by 19:15, and you will not be watching a circus on a full stomach.

Lune show FAQ

Đọc bản tiếng Việt: Lune Show Hội An – kinh nghiệm xem Teh Dar.