WOW! Kampung Baru Expo Malaysia 2026: 26 New Villages Come to Bukit Jalil

Kuala Lumpur gets many mall events, but this one has a more distinctive reason to go. WOW! Kampung Baru Expo Malaysia 2026 turns Pavilion Bukit Jalil into a meeting point for communities whose histories are usually experienced village by village rather than in one city venue.

The organiser, NGO KG-ing, has spent the past two years travelling through hundreds of new villages, resettlement villages and fishing settlements. For visitors, the result is a compact way to encounter regional food, craft, dialect, performance and community stories without pretending that one expo can substitute for visiting those places themselves.

01 · When and where is the expo?

The event runs from Friday 25 September to Sunday 27 September 2026 at the Pavilion Bukit Jalil Exhibition Centre. Current event coverage lists daily hours of 10am–10pm.

The exhibition centre is on Level 5, Pink Zone at Pavilion Bukit Jalil and spans about 47,000 sq ft across three halls. Pavilion also lists a separate exhibition-centre entrance from Level 2, useful if you are arriving specifically for an event rather than shopping first.

One detail remains worth checking close to your visit: the official Pavilion event listing confirms the dates, but the sources checked on 14 September did not clearly publish general-admission or registration conditions for the expo. We therefore have not labelled it free or ticketed.

02 · Why 26 new villages are coming to KL

The expo is the third in KG-ing’s series and is built around 26 new villages. The programme groups their stories and products under five themes: home, industry, craft, taste and habitat.

“New village” is not just a branding term here. These settlements form a distinctive part of Malaysia’s social and cultural landscape, with different local industries, food traditions, languages, associations and migration histories. The expo’s value for travellers is the contrast: instead of treating Malaysian culture as one uniform thing, it puts multiple communities and regional traditions side by side.

KG-ing says its broader documentation work has taken it to more than 400 new villages, resettlement villages and fishing settlements since 2024. That fieldwork gives the exhibition a stronger community-documentation angle than a generic “Malaysia culture” showcase.

03 · The 50-stall “Drop By!” Village Market

One of the easiest parts of the programme to understand is the “Drop By!” Village Market, planned with 50 stalls. Current reporting says the mix includes food, craft and cultural products brought in from participating communities.

For a visitor, this is likely to be the most browseable part of the expo: a chance to compare regional flavours and small-scale products in one place. Treat individual menus, product availability and prices as live-event details rather than fixed promises — stall line-ups and stock can change across a three-day event.

If food is your priority, arriving earlier in the day gives you more flexibility. If performance atmosphere is the bigger draw, check the organiser’s final programme before leaving for Bukit Jalil so you can time the market around the acts you want to see.

04 · Opera, dialect songs and 24 Festive Drums

The cultural line-up is unusually broad for a shopping-centre exhibition. Announced elements include Cantonese opera, harmonica performance, songs in Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka and Fuzhou, and 24 Festive Drums.

That multilingual mix is part of the point. New-village identity is shaped by specific communities and places, and the programme lets visitors hear some of those differences instead of flattening them into one stage show.

Exact performance times were not included in the current event sources we verified. If one particular act is important to you, use the final organiser or Pavilion programme rather than assuming it runs continuously across all three days.

05 · A Perak dyeing tradition gets a runway revival

A standout heritage element is the revival of “Ni Siap”, a traditional dyeing practice from Kuala Sepetang, Perak. Reporting on the expo describes a reddish colour produced using tannins from mangrove bark, with the technique being reintroduced through a fashion/runway presentation.

That makes it more than a static craft display. The project connects a local material tradition with contemporary design, which is exactly the kind of detail that can make the expo interesting even if you are not arriving as a specialist in Malaysian village history.

As with any heritage practice tied to a specific community and environment, it is better read as an introduction than as a complete explanation. If the display sparks your interest, use it as a reason to learn more about Kuala Sepetang and the people keeping the technique alive.

06 · The future of new villages is part of the programme too

The event is not only retrospective. KG-ing and the ICOMOS Malaysia New Village Working Group are presenting a forum titled “Kampung Baru-ing: The Future Is Already Happening”.

The forum is planned as three sessions covering community make-up, collective action and sustainability. That gives the expo a useful second layer: visitors can move from food, products and performance into questions about how these settlements change, organise and remain viable.

For residents, researchers and repeat Malaysia travellers, this may be the most substantial part of the programme. Check the final session schedule before attending because the current sources verified the forum themes but did not provide a complete hour-by-hour timetable.

07 · Getting to Pavilion Bukit Jalil without overcomplicating it

Pavilion Bukit Jalil operates a free shuttle between Awan Besar LRT station and the mall. Pavilion’s current transport information lists service from roughly 8am to 11pm at about 40-minute intervals, subject to traffic and its published timetable.

The mall’s shuttle page also shows some Friday gaps in the midday schedule, so do not turn “every 40 minutes” into a guaranteed clockwork connection. Check the current timetable on the day, especially if you are trying to make a particular forum or performance slot.

Other nearby rail stations listed by the exhibition centre include Bukit Jalil and Sri Petaling, but Awan Besar is the station with Pavilion’s dedicated shuttle. If you drive, the mall has extensive parking; for a busy weekend event, rail plus shuttle can remove the need to hunt for a bay at the busiest time.

08 · How I’d plan a visit

Choose your priority first. If you mainly want the village market, allow time to browse and eat without rushing. If you care most about performance, the Ni Siap presentation or the future-of-new-villages forum, wait for the final running order and build around that.

Do not assume ticketing. The dates and programme are well supported, but general admission or registration terms were not clearly stated in the sources checked. Confirm before making a special cross-city trip.

Use the expo as a starting point. The best outcome is not ticking off “26 villages” in a mall. It is discovering a food, craft, community or place that gives you a reason to explore more of Malaysia after the exhibition.

09 · Sources & verification

The event dates and Pavilion Bukit Jalil venue were checked against Pavilion Bukit Jalil’s official event listing.

The 10am–10pm event hours, 26-village format, five themes, 50-stall market, cultural performances, Ni Siap revival and forum details were cross-checked against The Star’s 8 September event report.

Venue level, exhibition-centre layout and public-transport planning were checked against Pavilion Bukit Jalil’s current getting-here information and the Pavilion Exhibition Centre’s official venue information. Admission and a complete hour-by-hour programme were not clearly published in the sources checked on 14 September, so neither has been invented here.

Cheers, Carpe Diem & Explore the Kampung Stories! — TATS Man