Festival «Bốc Fest»

The first edition of an open-air music festival in Hanoi, staged where concerts rarely happen: inside the Gia Lâm railway works across the Red River, among workshops, tracks and concrete living out its final years. The organisers packed the mood into one word — BỐC, to blaze.

General director and music director is composer Hồ Hoài Anh, who redefines the first season himself: «Bốc Fest is not only for rock». Here rock is not a genre but four words — freedom, sweep, breakthrough, fire — and every song, from pop and ballads to R&B, is rearranged in a modern rock idiom.

The essentials:

• — Bức Tường (The Wall) — the monument of Vietnamese rock, formed on 26 March 1995 at Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, still on stage a decade after frontman Trần Lập died on 17 March 2016
• — BỐC COLLAB #2: Bức Tường x RHYDER — legends meet the next generation, and the organisers stress it will happen exactly once
• — BỐC COLLAB #1: Đỗ Hoàng Hiệp x Vũ Thanh Vân — the growl of Ngũ Cung's former frontman against dreamy indie pop
• — Also playing: The Flob, 7UPPERCUTS, Hải Bột, Picker Band and Gen-Z newcomer LEXXY, with more names still being revealed
• — The whole site is standing only, split into BỐC ĐẦU (VIP) at the front and BỐC NHIỆT (standard) behind

Who these names are. Đỗ Hoàng Hiệp fronted Ngũ Cung for sixteen years, from its founding in 2007 until November 2023; the band is known for «Cướp vợ», built on H'Mông folk material. Hải Bột led the alt-rock outfit Quái Vật Tí Hon, whose album «Đường về» (2011) drew nominations at Vietnam's main music awards. The Flob, formed in Saigon in 2016, mixes alternative rock with Vietnamese folk and occult imagery. Vũ Thanh Vân brings confessional indie pop — «Em không», «Tori», «Đếm».

A whole campaign surrounds the festival. MyTonic is filming THE LAST TAKE, a short-documentary live session series — «where music outlives the walls» — with artists performing on the rubble of buildings weeks from demolition: Hà Lê with 2UP Band in episode two, Đỗ Hoàng Hiệp with «Về ăn cơm». Meanwhile a double-decker bus carries the festival mascot BOCO through central Hanoi, with VIP tickets and signed merchandise going to whoever photographs it.

Come if you have followed Bức Tường since student days and want them in an unusual room, or if you are buying for RHYDER or LEXXY — putting two generations in the same mosh pit is precisely the point of this first season.

Tickets in detail. Sales ran in three waves: «BỐC TIÊN PHONG» (599,000₫ standard / 999,000₫ VIP) sold out, «BỐC LÊN GA» (799,000 / 1,199,000₫) closed online, and the final «BỐC TĂNG TỐC» wave is live now — 999,000₫ standard and 1,399,000₫ VIP, up to ten tickets per order. Both tiers include a cloth check-in wristband, a lightstick, a sticker set and access to the culture station with its activity zones; VIP adds the area at the stage, a limited-edition bandana, a random sponsor gift and early check-in. Official sellers are CTicket and Ticketbox.

Getting there. The address is 551 Nguyễn Văn Cừ, Bồ Đề ward — the east bank of the Red River, in Long Biên. One planning detail matters: no metro line reaches the site. Both operating Hanoi metro lines stay on the west bank, and the line that would serve this district is still under construction. From the Old Quarter the sensible route is across the Chương Dương or Vĩnh Tuy bridge by taxi, ride-hailing or motorbike. Nothing has been published about parking or gate-opening time, so allow extra time if you drive and watch the announcements closer to the date.

The site already has form as a public venue: in 2023 its industrial halls were refitted for the Hanoi Creative Design Festival. This time they hold one evening in which Vietnamese rock builds a bridge between generations.