Salt on Your Lips Before the First Band Plays
The bass hits before you see the stage. You’re still walking the path from Fulong Station, flip-flops slapping the pavement, and you can already feel it — that low-end thrum traveling through the ground, mixing with the sound of waves somewhere ahead. The Hohaiyan Rock Festival (貢寮海洋音樂祭) does this thing where the Pacific Ocean provides the opening act, and nobody asked it to.
Scheduled for July 26–27, 2026, the festival returns to Fulong Beach in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District. Two days of indie rock, hip-hop crossovers, and whatever genre the Battle of the Bands finalists have invented this year, all performed on stages built directly on the sand. Admission is free — it has been every year — which partly explains why the beach gets so impossibly packed.
The Battle That Actually Matters
Most people come for the headliners on day two. But the heart of Hohaiyan has always been the 海洋獨立音樂大賞 (Ocean Independent Music Award) — a competition that’s been launching indie careers since 2000. Ten bands make it to the final round on the Fulong stage, playing original songs to a crowd that’s equal parts sunburned tourists and music industry scouts.
The prelims now happen weeks earlier at the Tamsui Fisherman’s Stage as part of the broader New Taipei River and Sea Music Season (新北市河海音樂季), which is the umbrella brand the city government uses these days. But the finals are still at Fulong. Still on the beach. Still the place where bands like Mayday and Fire Ex. got their early breaks, though honestly I’m not sure how many of this year’s acts would appreciate being compared to bands that played here two decades ago.
What makes the competition interesting isn’t the judging — it’s that the audience is standing in sand, holding beers, half-watching and half-swimming. It filters out the precious and rewards the bands who can hold a crowd that has every reason to wander off toward the water.
A Day on the Sand
During the day, Hohaiyan functions less like a music festival and more like the best beach party you’ve accidentally walked into. The stages don’t really heat up until mid-afternoon, so mornings belong to the ocean.
Fulong Beach has decent surf, nothing world-class, but good enough for beginners. The rental shops near the bridge charge somewhere around NT$500-800 for a board and a basic lesson — prices vary and I’d bet they go up during the festival. There’s a swimming zone marked off by buoys closer to the main beach area, and sandcastle building is an unofficial competitive sport here.
Food is the standard Taiwanese outdoor festival spread: grilled squid on sticks, sausages, shaved ice in increasingly absurd flavors, cold beer from every conceivable vendor. The grilled corn near the south end of the beach is unreasonably good — probably because everything tastes better when you’ve been swimming all day. Don’t expect gourmet. Expect volume.
By around 3 PM, the crowd starts shifting toward the main stage. This is when you realize just how many people are actually here. The area between the stage and the waterline becomes a single compressed mass of humanity, and if you want to be anywhere near the front, you needed to have been there an hour ago.
Getting There Without Losing Your Mind
Fulong is about 90 minutes from Taipei by TRA train. You want the line heading to Yilan — get off at Fulong Station, which is a five-minute walk to the beach. During the festival, they run extra services, but the trains still get crowded. If you’re coming on Saturday morning, aim for the 9 or 10 AM trains. By noon, you’ll be standing the whole way.
Driving is technically possible but parking is a nightmare. The roads into Gongliao narrow to two lanes, and during peak hours on festival weekend, the backup can stretch for kilometers. Seriously, take the train.
If you’re coming from overseas and need WiFi for navigation, GLOBAL WiFi does airport pickup at Taoyuan and Songshan — one less thing to figure out when you land.
The Parts Nobody Tells You
Some things to prepare for:
The heat is real. Late July in northern Taiwan means 33-35°C with humidity that makes your sunscreen slide off within an hour. Reapply constantly. Bring a hat you don’t care about losing. Drink water even when you don’t feel thirsty. Heat exhaustion at a beach festival is embarrassing but it happens every year — the medical tent is always busy.
Cell service collapses. Twenty thousand people on a beach in Gongliao will destroy any cell tower’s capacity. Don’t count on making calls or loading maps during peak hours. Download your transit info beforehand. Tell your friends where you’ll be because finding each other by text is not guaranteed.
The rain. Summer afternoon thunderstorms roll in fast off the ocean. They’re usually short — 30 to 45 minutes — but they’re intense. The festival doesn’t stop for rain, and the bands keep playing. Bring a thin rain jacket or poncho. Umbrellas are useless in a crowd and will make you unpopular.
Getting out afterward. The post-festival exodus is the worst part. The last trains fill up fast, and the line at Fulong Station after the final act can take 30-40 minutes just to get onto a platform. If you’re staying nearby, this is a non-issue. If you’re commuting back to Taipei, consider leaving before the final encore.
Where to Sleep
Fulong has a handful of hotels and B&Bs, and they all book out weeks in advance for the festival. The closer you are to the beach, the higher the markup — that’s just how it works.
Your options, roughly:
Fulong village — walkable to the beach, limited inventory, book early. Check availability on Booking.com if you want something close. Prices are not cheap during festival weekend, but you avoid the train crush.
Jiufen / Jinguashi — about 30-40 minutes by car. More atmospheric, more options, but you’ll need to arrange transport. Works better if you’re renting a scooter.
Yilan city — further out but connected by train. Some people do this, stay in Yilan and take the TRA back and forth. It works, it’s just not glamorous.
Camping — I’ve seen people camp on the beach fringes, but I’m not sure what the official policy is. Probably ask before setting up a tent.
For booking activities around the northeast coast — snorkeling at Longdong, the Caoling Historic Trail, or kayaking — KKday has a decent selection for the Gongliao area. Worth browsing if you’re making a weekend of it rather than just the music.
Why People Keep Coming Back
Hohaiyan isn’t the most organized festival. The sound quality varies by where you stand. The food is repetitive after two days. The train situation is genuinely stressful.
But there’s something about standing on sand with salt-crusted skin, watching a band you’ve never heard of play their hearts out while the sun drops behind the stage and the ocean goes dark behind you. It’s the combination — the music plus the Pacific plus the complete lack of pretension — that other festivals in Asia don’t quite replicate.
The 海洋獨立音樂大賞 has been running since the early 2000s, and the bands that came through it have shaped what Taiwanese indie sounds like today. That legacy means something, even if most people in the crowd are just there for the vibes.
On the walk back to the station, my sandals were full of sand and my phone was at 4%. The train was packed and I had to stand the whole way to Taipei. But the guy next to me was humming one of the competition songs, and I realized I was too.
