À Ố Show or Water Puppet Show in Saigon: Which Evening Show to Book
4 min read
The short answer
Choose the À Ố Show if you want a one-hour circus performance in the French colonial Saigon Opera House, and the water puppet show if you want a shorter show of a folk art the page calls 1,000 years old, which is easy to follow without a word of Vietnamese. Both fit into an evening and neither requires a full day. For most visitors who will see only one, we would book the À Ố Show ticket: €29.06 per person, 4.8 / 5 from 2,528 reviews.
The À Ố Show
The booking page describes contemporary circus with acrobatics, dance, live folk music played on 17 traditional instruments and handmade bamboo props, set between village life and the modern city. It runs for about one hour at the Ho Chi Minh City Opera House, 07 Công trường Lam Sơn, in the centre.
What to know before you go, all from the page:
- Seats are assigned by the system when you book, and tickets bought in one order are seated together.
- The show starts on time and latecomers may not be admitted.
- Food and drinks, video recording, cellphones and cameras are listed as not allowed.
- The child rate applies to ages 5 to 12. Children under 5 are not allowed in the auditorium. Bring a copy of the child’s passport on your phone, as the organiser may run random age checks.
- You exchange the app or web voucher for a ticket on the day.
The page lists the ticket and a reserved seat among its inclusions. It also names hotel pickup and food and drinks without saying which side they belong on, so do not count on either.
The water puppet show
The water puppet show ticket (€15.25, 4.7 / 5 from 1,897 reviews) is for the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theater, 55B Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai Street, District 1. The page says the show lasts 45 minutes, puppeteers work from behind a screen with bamboo rods and the stories come with a live traditional orchestra. The show is performed in Vietnamese, but the page gives a scene-by-scene guide to the legends and village scenes. Present your voucher at the box office 15 minutes before the show; latecomers cannot enter, cameras and flash photography are listed as not allowed and tickets are confirmed one to two days before. The page lists its duration as 45 to 75 minutes.
The puppets plus a dinner cruise
The water puppet show and dinner cruise (€74.82, 4.5 hours) is the evening package: a van from hotels in central District 1, the 45-minute show, then a two-hour dinner on the Indochina Queen boat on the Saigon River. English-speaking guide, up to 30 people, and the page lists the show ticket and dinner among the inclusions; drinks are not included. The page says the evening ends around 9:30 PM and that it is not suitable for people with mobility impairments or heart problems or for wheelchair users.
Our recommendation
For most visitors, the À Ố Show is the better single evening, with the rules above in mind. Choose the water puppet show if you want a shorter outing. With children under 5, who are not admitted to the À Ố Show, ask the puppet theatre’s operator about its own rules before you book. Choose the dinner-cruise package only if you want one evening with transport and dinner in one booking. For more evening options, see all 34 shows and evening tickets in Saigon, from €15.25, or the river cruises.
