When I was a high school student, Lunar New Year brought with it a lot of excitement. Not only did we get a week-long break, we also got plenty of fun school activities leading up to the holidays. For me, one of my most anticipated events during this period of time was the high school Tết concerts.
These concerts were usually a part of what schools referred to as the “Spring Festival,” or “Hội Xuân” in Vietnamese. During the festivals, students would be able to participate in various activities such as playing traditional Vietnamese folk games or setting up a class-wide kiosk to sell food, handmade items, etc. And after all that jazz, a music concert would serve as the grand finale.
The best part about these concerts was that famous Vietnamese pop stars took these gigs seriously, but ticket prices were very student-friendly. During my time in high school, it only cost about VND300,000 to see artists like Trịnh Thăng Bình, 365DaBand, or Ngô Kiến Huy perform live. Of course, in return for the affordable tickets, the stage and sound quality were often inferior to an actual concert. However, they still felt special due to the small-scale, intimate atmosphere. For a high school student, being able to interact up close with musicians you regularly see on TV was a totally rad experience.
Moreover, I could attend the Tết concerts of other schools, and my friends and I often took this as a fantastic occasion to catch up with friends from other schools, or old classmates whom we hadn’t seen since our secondary years. So in a way, before the Lunar New Year kicked in and our schedules were packed with visiting relatives and trips to our hometowns, these concerts gave us a chance to reconnect with friends we couldn’t make time for during the year.
