Territory-wide festive events are presented during major festive occasions throughout the year, including the Lunar New Year Lantern Carnivals, Mid-Autumn Lantern Carnivals, and the New Year's Eve Countdown Carnival, which feature a variety of spectacular entertainment and participatory activities by local and visiting artists. Other territory-wide carnivals include the Summer Fun Party, Community Thematic Carnival and Youth Band Marathon. Joint presentations with local organizations include the Concert in the Park, Asia Ethnic Cultural Performances and JAL Sky School.

District free entertainment programmes, funded by District Councils, are organized on a monthly basis at various outdoor and indoor venues, such as parks, playgrounds, podiums/plazas of housing estates, community arts centres and community halls. These programmes offer a wide choice to cater for diversified interests of the public including cultural programmes (covering western and Chinese programmes of classical and traditional nature) and popular programmes (performances with a popular appeal, such as variety show, pop concert and magic show).

The Entertainment Office is open to proposal for entertainment programmes. For the territory-wide festive events, the Entertainment Office will consider proposals of quality programmes to be part of the festivals/carnivals. Proposal should reach the Office at least nine months prior to the intended festivals for consideration and selection. Assessment of suitability of programmes will depend on the relevance of the proposal to the overall programming of the event, artistic and/or entertainment merit, audience appeal and production costs.

For the district free entertainment programmes, the Entertainment Office has been keeping an approved list of arts groups for giving free district entertainment programmes regularly. The Office will consider applications by arts groups or impresarios not on the approved list. The arts group concerned must have been established for 3 years or above. The applicant is required to complete a standard application form obtainable from the Entertainment Office to furnish the history/biography of the arts group, programme proposal and budget breakdown. The applicant is also required to provide other reference materials, such as house programmes of their past performances, photos, audio and video tapes to the Entertainment Office for consideration. Assessment of suitability of programmes includes the artistic and/or entertainment merit, popularity/innovation of the programme, suitability of the programme for district free entertainment programmes, organizing ability of the applicant, technical feasibility of outdoor presentation and programme mix.

All programme proposals for both the territory-wide festival events and district free entertainment programmes will be considered by the Programme Co-ordinating Committee of the Entertainment Office. A detailed assessment of the applicant, including the viewing of the video tapes or attending the rehearsals or performances to assess the artistic standard will be conducted.

For engagement of arts groups for giving free entertainment programmes regularly, groups with established track records selected by the Programme Co-ordinating Committee of the Entertainment Office will be arranged to give two trial performances. If the trial performances have been assessed to meet the required standard, the group will be registered in the Entertainment Office's approved list for district free entertainment programmes. Invitation for performance is made on a rotational basis at the agreed fee.