One of Hong Kong’s major LGBTQ+ events has been called off after organisers experienced issues getting formal permission from authorities and lost access to their venue.

Founded in 2014, Pink Dot HK is an LGBTQ+ festival that has attracted thousands of participants over the years. The event combined concerts, workshops, talks and other community activities, promoting LGBTQ+ awareness and visibility in the city.

This year’s event was due to take place on June 14. However, only a few weeks before the festival was set to kick off, organisers announced that it would no longer go ahead.

The decision was taken after the venue operator, Link Reit, withdrew access to Stanley Plaza and Murray House, the spaces where the event was due to take place, due to the authorities’ failure to grant approval.

In a statement shared on Instagram, organisers said: “With just a month to go until the scheduled event date, we’ve been diligently following procedures to apply for the necessary licences but haven’t yet received approval from the relevant authorities.

“Faced with this uncertainty, given the tight timeline and the involvement of numerous partner organisations, after thorough consideration, we have had to make the difficult decision to cancel this year’s Pink Dot HK outdoor carnival scheduled for 14 June 2026.”

 

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This is the second year in a row that organisers were forced to call off the festival. In 2025, Pink Dot HK was cancelled after they were denied a venue “without any explanation”. The event was subsequently replaced with a livestreamed concert and fashion show.

The repeated cancellation of the LGBTQ+ festival has sparked concerns among activists in Hong Kong, where spaces for queer events appear to be narrowing in the last few years, particularly after a recent law was introduced. In 2020, Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong, criminalising acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and “collusion with foreign forces”.

Passed after mass protests that took place in 2019, the law prescribes penalties that can extend to life in prison. Because of its vague provisions, the law could lead to a “curtailment of a wide range of rights and freedoms”, including freedom of expression and assembly, according to the UN Human Rights Committee.

In recent years, protections of LGBTQ+ rights have been expanded in Hong Kong, though progress has been slow. In 2024, the city’s top court upheld three prior rulings in favour of housing and inheritance rights for same-sex couples.

However, last year, lawmakers in Hong Kong voted against a bill that would have granted rights to same-sex couples who entered a civil partnership or marriage abroad. The move received widespread backlash both from local activists and internationally.