Insider tip - The Symphony of Lights Laser Light Show in HK
Still totally underwhelming after 20+ years in Hong Kong
Me Jamie, your host, I am English and I have lived in Hong Kong for 53 years - I know the place.
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Insider tip - The Symphony of Lights Laser Show in Hong Kong
Still totally underwhelming after 20+ years in Hong Kong
click on the image to enlarge
I took this image on the evening of April 9th 2025
Hong Kong - A Symphony Of Lights
"A Symphony of Lights" (SoL) has illuminated Hong Kong's skyline for the enjoyment of millions of tourists since 2004. This multi-media show has always been the signature icon for Hong Kong, symbolising its dynamic energy and contrasting culture.
In December 2017, SoL has taken on a new direction and transformed Hong Kong's cityscape into a true symphony. In grand style the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra has recorded the new musical score, entwined with a vibrant and contemporary flavour, representing the charismatic rhythm of Hong Kong. Traditional Chinese flutes and string bowed instruments such as the Erhu, have been interwoven to create a truly distinctive sound, matching Hong Kong's character of "east meets west".
With 43 buildings and two attractions featured in this incarnation of SoL, this symphonic approach joins each participating building into a harmonious and complete canvas, working effortlessly together to the beat in unison. The city of Hong Kong is SoL's source of inspiration; the patterned symmetry of the skyline, modern metropolitan design, forested mountain terrain and expanse of the harbour, offer a truly all-encompassing visual and sound scape of the soul of Hong Kong. A myriad of searchlights, lasers, LED screens and lighting illuminate for this nightly spectacle that transforms the HK skyline into an outdoor audio visual feast for the senses.”
Starts at 8pm sharp, daily except for when they have fireworks on major public holidays.
The blurb above is courtesy of the Hong Kong Government and the Hong Kong Tourism Commission, as far as I can see it does not even merit its own website - I so badly want to like the Symphony of Lights Laser Light Show, I have seen it hundreds of times since 2004 and I never fail to feel totally underwhelmed for something if done properly can really make a huge difference and give visitors something with that wow factor and something to talk about in this social media age, you want people to visit Hong Kong, then this is perfect vehicle.
I am not sure if the relevant Government Departments, ie the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the Hong Kong Tourism Commission and such actually care about what people think of Hong Kong’s major attractions, I am pretty sure they do not read Tripadvisor reviews.!
Think about it, on average 1.5 to 2 million people every year for over 20 years have seen the Symphony of Lights Laser Light Show since 2004 and in that time it has mustered 2,092 reviews on Tripadvisor which to me just highlights the problem, people are so underwhelmed they simply cannot be bothered to leave a review.
What is worse is that it has a 3 star rating which means “average”
Actually the review in the image above in March 2025 sums it up rather nicely.
click on the image to enlarge
These 3 images show that in essence the show has degraded in 2025 as the Iconic Bank of China Building and its famous white triangular lights have been lost due to a large building being recently built right in front of it it and still IFC the huge 88 floor building has NO lights to speak of, the lasers from the roof are barely visible.
“A Symphony of Lights’ is the spectacular light and sound show at Victoria Harbour which incorporates a dazzling array of colourful lights synchronised to music.”
The comment above is from the official site of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (which is a different department to the Hong Kong Tourism Commission - go figure!) and basically all they can be bothered to write is 2 lines of blurb, 2 lines only! the Hong Kong Tourism Board should be doing better than that to describe the Hong Kong Symphony of Lights Laser Light Show.
To be fair, they did produce a very hard to find page about the show, see link below.
I took these images on the evening of April 9th 2025
click on the image to enlarge
I have a pretty good and very expensive camera and even that cannot work miracles, the show has no vibrancy, no wow factor, with one exception.
If you look at the image no. 6 bottom right, you will see the lights on our tallest building ICC at 118 floors, now that is really something, the problem is, if you are standing in Kowloon looking across Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island, you can easily NOT notice this marvellous building and yes, virtually everyone who sees the show stand on Kowloon side! please note that in actual fact the lights on the 118 floor ICC Building is its own show and runs for much longer, it is not connected to the Symphony of Lights Laser Light Show and please note that to really enjoy the ICC Building Lights you need to be on Hong Kong Island looking across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon.
I have often wondered why the IFC building on Hong Kong Island at 88 floors does not have a similar lighting system, that would make a huge difference, it shoots out lasers from the roof but they can be hard to see
If you click the link below you will be transported to the Laservision web page for the Hong Kong Symphony of Lights Laser Light show, Laservision is an Australian company who designed the show. all I can really say is that I hope your camera can make the images look as vibrant as their images! to be honest the actual show looks nothing like their promotional images and videos.
Also Laservision should update their schematics, the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Hong Kong Island closed in 2008 and reopened in ICC (the 118 floor building) in 2011 and more importantly Hutchison House was demolished a few years ago and was replaced by the brand new Cheung Kong Centre 2 (opened in 2025) whose claim to fame is basically blocking the lights on the Bank of China Tower with its iconic white triangular lights!
Please also bear in mind the fireworks shown in the promotional video only happen 4 or 5 times a year at best., they are NOT part of the daily show.
“The city earlier this year had budgeted HK$243 million to improve tourist attractions, including light shows. The commission said its survey found visitors who had watched the show were “generally satisfied” with it.
However, stakeholders of the show viewed the overall setting as inadequate.”
The above is a quote from a South China Morning Post Hong Kong article in 2017 and frankly “generally satisfied” is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Purely from a personal point of view I have a few ideas on how our Laser Show could have that WOW factor that is sadly missing, I find it hard to believe that the revamp in 2017 | 2018 barely changed anything and in February 2024 the Government announced plans to revamp the show basically adding in fireworks and drones, unless I am missing something, nothing much has changed, I was there just 2 days ago and nothing has changed.
Have IFC (88 floors) install lights to match those on ICC (118 floors) in Kowloon, this would be a game changer! as you can see from my images since 2014, NO lights on IFC.
incorporate a drone show in “harmony” with the light show, we have had a few drone shows and they were spectacular.. they should be doing one a month, the Government needs to do this asap
incorporate more fireworks, bringing the frequency up to at least once a month and this is a no brainer
double the number of buildings with lights, if they brought it up to 100 buildings, oh my gosh, another game changer
In a nutshell, this is not rocket science, the Government shares the cost with the buildings to put on the Symphony of Lights Laser Light Show but the Government in my mind should pay the full cost to bring the building count up to 100+ buildings, in 2024 Hong Kong had 45 million people visit Hong Kong and at least half of those are around at night time, word of mouth about the wow factor is all they need to consider.
One other point, is that quite a few people book harbour cruises to see the light show this is a very expensive way to see the light show which has NO admission fee! still the 2 fishing junks the Aqua Luna (1 and 2) and the Dukling are worth it at anytime of the day! and of course if you get your timing right you could get the Star Ferry and see the laser show up front and personal in Victoria Harbour.
The image that goes with this article is NOT my image but it is realistic in terms of what you currently see when the laser show is in full swing.
This is an article from September 2024 and I have a strong suspicion that the mid 2025 launch day will NOT be met, I have not seen in any press reports about the progress of the 2025 relaunch of the Symphony of Lights Laser Light Show! watch this space as they say!
My insider tip.
As I mentioned above I really want to say that the Light show is awesome but it isn’t and we are still waiting for the improvements mentioned by the Government in early 2024
For me personally it is as underwhelming now as it was back in 2004 when it started, fine, they have added new stuff, the new speaker system is a major improvement but is simply lacks that wow factor in any shape or form. You can easily be in a crowd of 10,000 people and you barely hear a murmur from the crowd, you feel at any moment that something “wow” will happen in the less than 10 minute show, and that wow moment simply does not happen
So, in a nutshell, if you are at the TST Promenade | Clock Tower next to the Star Ferry Terminal in Kowloon or on the Avenue of Stars next to the Promenade then by all means watch the show but remember it is at a very specific time and you need to be in a very specific place (s) at 8pm and you will probably utter the words “is that it?” muttered by millions of people over the past 21 years.
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