ILOILO City – Organizers of Dinagyang 2026 are sticking to the festival’s traditional early-morning tribe performances, a move aimed at tightening crowd management and improving the overall spectator experience as online ticket sales are set to open soon.
Iloilo Festivals Foundation Inc. (IFFI) executive director Joyce Clavecillas said Ati tribe performances will begin after the customary morning Mass.
It was previously announced that the Ati tribe competition would be held in the afternoon for the first time.
“After the Mass ends at around 7 a.m., everybody will proceed to the Freedom Grandstand, and we will start at 8 a.m.,” Clavecillas clarified.
Performances at the Iloilo Sports Complex are expected to follow at around 10 a.m.
Clavecillas said the adjusted timetable will be clearly indicated in the festival’s online ticketing platform to ensure that attendees are well-informed even before arriving at the venues.
“Since our tickets are online, upon purchasing, the schedule will already be there. They will receive all the information through email — what time the gates will open and other important details — because once you purchase, the tickets will be sent directly to their email,” she said.
She assured the public that preparations for the digital ticketing system are already in place, citing extensive testing conducted by the technical team.
“So far, our web developer has secured the site. They did testing many times and based on our experience last year, thankfully there were no major problems, no major glitches, and the system did not go down,” Clavecillas said.
She added that the developer advised restricting the website solely to ticket sales to prevent heavy traffic and maintain system stability.
IFFI is now awaiting final clearance from its web developer before opening ticket sales to the public.
“The system is already ready, and there are only a few things left to finalize,” Clavecillas said. “We will post the announcement and the link tonight. Hopefully there will be no problems, and yes, tonight we will announce if the ticketing website is already open.”
She added that the foundation retained the same website and development team that handled last year’s ticketing operations, expressing confidence in a smoother rollout for Dinagyang 2026./PN
