Exclusive | ‘It’s complicated’: Hong Kong Lyric Theatre Complex delayed again, now aiming for completion in 2026
- Arts hub chief says delay is partly due to challenges of building three separate theatres of different sizes in the venue
- Lyric Theatre is West Kowloon hub’s next major landmark after M+ Museum, Palace Museum and Xiqu Centre
The completion of Hong Kong’s multimillion-dollar Lyric Theatre Complex has been postponed again by another year to 2026 as the city’s cash-strapped arts hub continues to work out new sources of funding.
Betty Fung Ching Suk-yee, CEO of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, told the Post the theatre complex was “a complicated project”, partly delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and other factors.
Its completion date has been moved from 2024 to next year, and now to 2026.
“It’s a challenging complex to build,” Fung said.
She explained that a change of plans meant bringing together three separate theatres into one and building them at the same time. These are the 1,450-seat Lyric Theatre, a 600-seat medium-sized venue and a 270-seat studio one.
“It was not as complicated initially, but the authority wanted to amalgamate three facilities into one,” Fung said. “Putting them together makes it more difficult, even though it will be cheaper to build it in one go than separately.”
