Hola, Escolta! returns on Saturday, November 21, 2026. Pop-ups, exhibitions, workshops and live music will fill all six floors of the First United Building, and Escolta Street will close to traffic for the day. Entry is free and open to everyone.
In September, I wrote that Escolta is rotting on purpose, and that almost nobody is fighting it. Hola, Escolta! is the clearest exception. It comes from the same building where I spent most of that afternoon, on a street whose metal shutters were rolling down by six. This is the one day a year the block stays lit well past that.
What’s Happening on November 21
The whole First United Building becomes the venue. The 1928 Art Deco building at 413 Escolta Street will open all six floors to pop-ups, exhibitions, workshops and performances. Creative studios and workspaces that are normally closed to the public will open their doors for the day.
Outside, the street belongs to pedestrians, local artists and independent merchants. With Christmas a month away, the stalls are a good place to buy gifts from people who make things by hand downtown. They’re also a good excuse to walk the length of Escolta and look up at the pre-war facades.
As the day winds down, music and performances take over, and the block party runs into the evening. It’s a Saturday, so there’s no reason to rush home.
The organizers haven’t released the full schedule of performers or the list of participating merchants. Last year’s edition gives a sense of the range: Project Lemons turned the third floor into a mini-perya, a neighborhood carnival of low-stakes games, and the ground floor hosted a marketplace for LGBTQIA+ creatives. ELYSPLANET will update this piece once the 2026 lineup is out.
The Building Behind the Party
The First United Building went up in 1928, designed by Andres Luna de San Pedro, and opened as the Perez-Samanillo Building, home to Berg’s Department Store. Jose Cojuangco bought it in 1968, opened a bank branch on the ground floor and renamed it First United. Today the Sylianteng family runs it.
In 2015, the family opened a community museum on the mezzanine as part of an effort to restore the building through adaptive reuse, the practice of giving an old building a new job instead of tearing it down. HUB: Make Lab, the creative market on the ground floor, followed in 2016.
Who’s Behind It
The First United Building organizes the event with Kalye Escolta, Project Lemons, HUB: Make Lab, Magpatina and One Zero Design Co. HUB: Make Lab is where small makers rent stalls and sell directly to walk-ins. Project Lemons is the team behind the creative space Lemon Drop. One Zero Design Co. is an architecture and design studio based on the building’s fifth floor. Kalye Escolta runs the street’s pedestrian arts markets; its Women’s Month edition in March drew around 40 independent brands.
The organizers describe the event as “of the streets and for the streets.”
Four Years In
Block parties are an old habit on this street. The first Escolta Block Party filled the building and the road in front of it on November 26, 2016, and ran until midnight. Hola, Escolta! returned in November 2023 as the street’s first block party since the pandemic, timed to the First United Building’s 95th anniversary. That edition had support from the City of Manila, the city’s Department of Tourism, Culture and Arts, and the Escolta Commercial Association.
It came back in 2024. In 2025, for its third straight year, it grew to two Saturdays, November 22 and 29, and stretched across two blocks of Escolta Street. That run included a street market, busking tours and urban placemaking workshops alongside the open floors. This year it goes back to a single, fuller day.
One Saturday won’t change the retrofit math I wrote about in September. The building owners who find it cheaper to let their properties decay will still find it cheaper on November 22. What the day does is bring a crowd downtown and open doors most visitors never get to walk through. The businesses that keep the building alive the rest of the year will be there to meet them.
Where and When
- Event: Hola, Escolta! 2026
- Date: Saturday, November 21, 2026 (start time to be announced; last year’s edition opened at 10:00 AM)
- Venue: First United Building, 413 Escolta Street, Binondo, Manila, and Escolta Street, which will be closed to traffic
- Admission: Free, open to all
- Getting there: Take LRT-1 to Carriedo Station, then walk about two minutes west past Plaza Lacson to the eastern end of Escolta. The free Pasig River Ferry also stops at Escolta Station. It runs Monday to Saturday, so it operates that day; check MMDA channels for the schedule.
- Updates: @holaescolta on Instagram