Hungry Ghost Festival: HK ad veterans reveal their scariest encounters

Today (27 August) marks the Hungry Ghost Festival, falling on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month. Across Hong Kong, streets are lined with burning joss paper and offerings as families pay tribute to their ancestors, while the scent of incense drifts through the evening air, a deeply rooted tradition that transforms the city's atmosphere.

But for agency leads and creatives juggling relentless deadlines and graveyard shifts, the festival carries an extra layer of unease. Long hours on set, dimly lit studios, and the weight of superstition have made for some truly unforgettable and unsettling moments. When fatigue sets in and shadows stretch a little longer, even the most sceptical among them have found themselves glancing over their shoulders.

We caught up with several Hong Kong industry players to uncover the spine tingling stories they'll never forget. Here are their accounts.

Amy Cheng, creative director, Edelman Hong Kong

Many years ago, I was working on a Halloween shoot during Ghost Month. The location was a remote grassland near a highway in the New Territories, which already felt like the perfect horror movie setting…

Just after midnight, the power suddenly went out. It lasted only 5 seconds before everything came back on. Everyone froze. Then the director calmly said, “It’s okay. We already did a blessing ritual (拜神) before the shoot.” So we laughed it off and carried on.

The next day, the production team called with another surprise. Some footage was mysteriously missing when they started editing. There was no way to reshoot, so they had to work around it.

A week later, we presented the first cut to the client. Then something even scarier happened…

The clients had absolutely NO comments! Not a single one! We passed with just one edit!

Maybe the blessing really worked; the spirits were on our side.

Iris Leung, associate creative director, Havas Hong Kong

It was 12:30 a.m., and I was the last one left in the office. Suddenly, I heard it.

"Dood."

The sound came from the vending machine in the pantry. I looked over. No one was there. No Octopus card had been tapped on the reader, yet the machine had somehow come to life on its own.

"Stop playing. I'm working," I said. The office fell silent again. For a moment, nothing happened.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder if "someone" was trying to tell me something.

I took it as a friendly reminder that it was time to call it a day. So I packed up my things and left.

As the lift doors closed, I heard it one last time.

"Dood." 

It came from somewhere inside the office, but I was the last person out.

John Koay, chief creative officer, Omnicom Advertising Hong Kong. 

I vividly remember a moment on set several years ago where everyone was scared out of their wits.

We were shooting a TVC at the old Clear Water Bay studios, late at night. It was around 3am and we were about to shoot the final scene. The assistant director heard people talking and shouted, “Quiet on set!!!” 

The noises only grew louder… 

Frustrated, he yelled again for everyone to be quiet. But the murmuring continued, getting louder and more aggressive. It seemed to be coming from the darkest corner and ceiling of the studio. Everyone looked around… but no one was talking. 

Then, suddenly, our head producer put her hands together, looked up, and said, “Sorry, excuse us. We won’t disturb you for much longer.”

Right after she said that, there was complete silence.

Everyone realised what had just happened. We just looked at each other, mortified, and rushed to finish the scene so we could get out of there as quickly as possible… 

Shawn Ho, creative director, SO DON’T BORE

Back in 2014, I was a humble intern trying to survive my first job at a Shanghai ad agency. 

It was about 3am when I finally left the office and walked back to the old, shared lane house I rented with my roommate.

Exhausted, I made a mistake and turned right one alley too early. That was when I saw “him”.

Described in an art director's terms: he looked like an old man, but rendered entirely in pale grey with a low opacity, as if his edges had been softened with a feather edge. His face was nothing more than a smooth canvas wiped clean by a Gaussian blur. Goosebumps instantly covered my body, and I turned my head away instantly. When I looked back a second later, he was gone.

I sprinted home and spiked a fever until the next afternoon.

That faceless ghost terrified me, but waking up that noon was worse - I realised I still had to go back to the office. 

Real horror is capitalism, not ghosts.

Desmond So, CEO, Uth Creative Group

This takes me back to the “good old days” - when “working late” meant sleeping under your desk and calling it a power nap. We were in the middle of a massive pitch, the kind that makes or breaks your year. Past midnight, the office was empty except for my core team, running on stale coffee and adrenaline.

Around 1:30am, my junior suddenly stopped typing. “Do you hear that?” We all paused. Then we heard it - this faint, rhythmic scritch-scratch sound. In bursts, then stop, then start again. Like someone slowly dragging their nails across paper.

Now, I'm not superstitious. But it was the Hungry Ghost Festival that week, and we'd been telling scary stories to stay awake. Suddenly, nobody wanted to check the printer. One guy joked, “If it's a ghost, can it at least help with the deck?”

I walked toward the sound, flipped on the light near the machine - and there it was. The fax machine, happily spitting out page after page. Just our media partners sending materials. They always sent bulk faxes after midnight to avoid daytime line charges.

We all looked at each other and just lost it. Laughter. Pure, exhausted, ridiculous laughter. The scariest thing we encountered wasn't a ghost - it was a fax machine doing its job. In advertising, the real horror isn't the supernatural. It's realising you've been scared by office equipment while the client deadline is still breathing down your neck.

So So, creative partner, We Glow Hong Kong

Over a decade ago, on a Shanghai shoot, I turned in early in my hotel room because of a brutal call time. I drank half a can of beer to help me sleep and left the rest on the bedside table.

In the haze between sleep and waking, a woman’s soft laugh brushed right against my ear. Then came the clear, rhythmic bounce of a ping-pong ball from the ceiling above: tok… tok… tok… I tried to move, to sit up, but my body was locked. Panic flooded me until exhaustion pulled me under again.

The next morning I woke shaken in that same hotel room, telling myself it must have been a dream. I got up to brush my teeth… and froze. The half-empty beer can on the table was completely dry…

I’ve never left an open drink by the bed since.

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