Each of these happens on a fixed night. Where the venue publishes the schedule on its own site we have said so, and where it does not, the card carries a warning — because recurring evening listings rot faster than anything else, and most of the ones circulating are wrong.

🎸 Kani Ka Pila Grille

Every night · 6–9pm

OUTRIGGER Reef, 2169 Kālia Rd, Waikīkī

No cover stated

Hawaiian music under a monkeypod tree, with a named artist for every single night of the week — Sean Naʻauao Mondays, Kalaʻe Camarillo Tuesdays, Ei Nei Wednesdays, Kawika Kahiapo Thursdays, Ka Hehena Fridays, Hoʻokena Saturdays, Nathan Aweau Sundays.

The single most reliable answer to "what is on tonight" on this island, because it is on every night and the resort names who is playing. Their own page notes the schedule can change.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🌅 House Without a Key

Every night · Music 5:30–8:30pm, hula 6:30–8:30pm

Halekulani, 2199 Kālia Rd, Waikīkī

No cover

Hawaiian music and hula on the lawn under a kiawe tree, with the sunset behind it.

First come, no reservations for the lawn. The most photographed sunset hour in Waikīkī, and it costs nothing to stand there.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🎤 Open mic at Hula’s

Monday · 7–10pm

Hula’s Bar & Lei Stand, 134 Kapahulu Ave, 2nd floor

Free to watch, and every performer gets a drink

The long-running Monday open mic. Live music the rest of the week too — a named act every night from Tuesday to Saturday.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🧺 Waikīkī Makers Market

Monday · 4–8pm

Waikīkī Beach Walk plaza lawn, 226 Lewers St

Free

Around thirty stalls of craft and food on the lawn.

Covered in more detail, with what is actually handmade, in our craft fairs guide.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🌺 Kū Haʻaheo

Tuesday · 4:30–6pm

Waikīkī Beach Walk plaza

Free

Free live Hawaiian music and hula on the plaza, every Tuesday.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🪕 The Royal Grove

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday · 5:30–6:30pm

Royal Hawaiian Center, 2201 Kalākaua Ave

Free

Free music in the courtyard five nights a week, ending with hula kahiko on Saturdays. Steel guitar on Fridays.

The acts rotate, so check the current listing rather than a name you read somewhere. Their free daytime classes — lei making, lauhala, ukulele — are all at 11:30am, not evening, whatever the listicles imply.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🧠 Trivia at Village Bottle Shop

Tuesday · 7–9pm

SALT at Our Kakaʻako

Free to enter

Weekly pub quiz in the bottle shop. SALT also runs live music at Highway Inn on Thursdays, 5:30–7:30pm.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🍺 Trivia at Champs

Monday · 8pm

Champs Hawaiʻi

Free, with prizes for the top three

A weekly Monday quiz, verified on the venue’s own events page.

There are roughly thirty trivia nights across Oʻahu on any given week, mostly at 7pm and mostly Monday to Thursday. This is the one we could confirm from a venue’s own page rather than from a magazine round-up.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🥬 Honolulu Farmers Market

Wednesday · 4–7pm

Neal S. Blaisdell Center

Free entry

One of only two Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau markets on this island that runs in the evening. The other is Kailua on Thursdays, same hours.

Every other Farm Bureau market on Oʻahu is a morning market, which is not obvious from most listings.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🎞️ Movie night on the Village Green

Wednesday · From sundown

Hilton Hawaiian Village

Free

A film on the lawn, outdoors, starting when it gets dark.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🎆 Hilton fireworks

Friday · 8pm

Hilton Hawaiian Village lagoon — visible free from the beach

Free from the sand

The weekly Friday fireworks, and the reason Waikīkī beach fills up before eight on a Friday.

The resort’s own pages say 8pm. A number of other sites say 7:45pm. Get there for half past and you are covered either way.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🖼️ HoMA Nights

Friday · 6–9pm

Honolulu Museum of Art, 900 S Beretania St

Not published on the landing page

Galleries open late, live music in the central courtyard, and stargazing in the courtyards. The museum is open until 9pm on Fridays and closes at 6pm every other day it opens.

This replaced Art After Dark. If you are looking for that, it is this now.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🌴 Kūhiō Beach Hula Show

Saturday · 6:30–7:30pm

Kūhiō Beach hula mound, ocean side of Kalākaua by the Duke Kahanamoku statue

Free

An hour of hula on the beach, opening with the pū. Bring a mat or a low chair. Weather permitting.

Saturdays only. The Tuesday show was discontinued after June 2026 — the organiser says so on their own site — and almost every guide still lists both nights.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🦁 Honolulu Zoo Twilight Tour

Saturday · 4:30–6:30pm

Honolulu Zoo, 151 Kapahulu Ave

$30 adult, $25 child · kamaʻāina $25 and $20 · Zoo Society members $20 and $15

A guided two-hour walk through the zoo as the animals wake up for the evening. Rain or shine.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

🏃 The run clubs

Check before you go

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday · 5:15–6:15pm

Kakaʻako Waterfront Park, Runners Route on Kapiʻolani, ʻĀweoweo Beach Park, Hozit Brewing

Mostly free

Doho Run Club Tuesdays and Thursdays 5:30pm on South King. Honolulu Runners and Kakaʻako Run Club Tuesdays 5:30pm. North Shore Run Club Wednesdays 5:15pm. Run Drink Repeat Thursdays 6:15pm from a Kakaʻako brewery.

These move. Check the club’s own social before turning up somewhere in running shoes.

No page that publishes the schedule · checked 2026-08-13

💃 Salsa and bachata classes

Monday, Wednesday · 6pm and 7:30pm

Music Body and Soul, 560 N Nimitz Hwy #221

$285–$345 for a ten-week course

Progressive ten-week courses — bachata on Mondays, salsa on Wednesdays, beginner and advanced each night.

They refer to a monthly social and a weekly open practice but publish no day or time for either, so ask when you enquire.

No page that publishes the schedule · checked 2026-08-13

🎨 Friday evening art classes

Friday · 6–8pm

HoMA Art School, 900 S Beretania St

$37–$40 a session

Single-session evening workshops — botanical monoprints, hand-stitched bookbinding, gelli plate printmaking, composition and design.

Almost everything else in their adult catalogue is daytime. If you work nine to five, this Friday slot is the museum art school, and it is bookable one class at a time.

Their page · checked 2026-08-13

Once a month rather than once a week

First Friday

First Friday of every month, 5–9pm

Chinatown and downtown

Free

The art walk. Capitol Modern opens 5–9pm, Downtown Art Center until 8pm, the galleries open late and the bars run to 2am. We have a whole guide to it.

Their page

The Stars Tonight

Roughly monthly on a Friday, 7–8pm

Bishop Museum planetarium

$10 adult, $7 age 4–17, under-3s free, members half price

A live planetarium show on what is overhead tonight, followed by stargazing on the Great Lawn with the Hawaiian Astronomical Society, weather permitting. Registration closes an hour before.

Their page

Sunset on the Beach

Occasional Saturdays — festivities from 4pm, film at dusk

Queen’s Surf Beach, Waikīkī

Free

A film on a big screen on the sand. The start time tracks sunset rather than the clock, so it drifts through the year. Bring your own chair.

Night markets

Various — first and third Friday, second Friday, second Saturday, third Wednesday, last Wednesday

Waikele, Kāneʻohe, Kakaʻako, Kalihi, ʻAiea

Free

A different one most weeks somewhere on the island, mostly food trucks with some retail. Our craft fairs guide has the ones that are actually handmade.

When it actually gets dark

Late November — the earliest of the year5:48pm

21 December, the winter solstice5:55pm

Early July — the latest of the year7:18pm

Sunset times for Honolulu from the US Naval Observatory.

The earliest sunset is not on the shortest day. By the solstice the sun already sets seven minutes later than it did in late November, which is one of those facts that sounds wrong until you look it up.

The whole annual swing here is about an hour and a half. Los Angeles swings three and a half hours and Seattle’s midsummer sun sets at ten past nine. Part of that is latitude and part is that Hawaiʻi does not observe daylight saving — that is written into state law at HRS §1-31.

On the shortest day, civil twilight ends at 6:19pm, so you get roughly twenty-four minutes of usable light after the sun goes down.

The part nobody tells you: a lot of this island shuts early

An evening guide that lists twenty things to do and none of these is not much of a guide. This is the reason a night here often ends earlier than you planned.

Ala Moana Center

8pm, every day

The largest mall in the state, shut by eight.

Last call, almost everywhere

2am

The Honolulu Liquor Commission allows restaurant, bar, club and hotel licences to serve from 6am to 2am. Four in the morning exists only under a special cabaret licence.

Buying alcohol to take away

Midnight

Off-premise sales stop at midnight, which catches people out on the way home from somewhere.

Waikīkī Aquarium

4:30pm, building closed at 5pm

Diamond Head State Monument

Gate closes 6pm, last entry 4:30pm

There is no sunset hike up Diamond Head. People try.

Kaʻena Point State Park

7pm

Honolulu Museum of Art

6pm, except Fridays when it is 9pm

Closed Mondays and Tuesdays altogether.

Lifeguards

6:30pm, island-wide

Honolulu Ocean Safety towers and mobile units run 8am to 6:30pm. In June and July the sun does not set until 7:18pm, so the last three quarters of an hour of daylight are unguarded everywhere on Oʻahu.

And the parks close, at times that vary wildly

· There is no island-wide park closing time. The city ordinance makes it an offence to be in a park during its closed hours provided a sign says what those hours are — so the sign at that specific park is what governs.
· The default is 10pm to 5am, and the City publishes the real list district by district. Kapiʻolani Regional Park and Kūhiō Beach Park close at midnight. Kailua Beach Park closes at midnight too. Ala Wai Community Park closes at 11pm.
· Some close far earlier than you would guess. Centennial Park in Waikīkī shuts at 7pm, Smith-Beretania at 7pm, Waipahū Cultural Garden Park at 4pm.
· One carve-out worth knowing: you may cross a closed beach park by the most direct route to reach the shoreline.
· State trails are daylight-only unless a specific trail says otherwise — DLNR writes their hours as six in the morning to sunset.

Six things other guides still get wrong

Evening listings decay faster than anything else we publish, and this is what that looks like in practice.

The Kūhiō Beach hula show runs Tuesdays and Saturdays

Saturdays only. The show’s own site says, in capitals, that Tuesday shows were discontinued after June 2026, and the Waikīkī Improvement Association gives the same date. Anything listing Thursdays as well was never right.

There is a nightly torch lighting ceremony in Waikīkī

No organiser currently publishes one. The hula show’s own page describes the conch and never mentions torches. The only recent torch lighting we could find was a one-off marathon weekend ceremony in December 2025. We are not saying it has ended — only that nobody publishes it.

Honolulu Night Market is monthly

It is not. Our Kakaʻako lists it as a single date — 18 July 2026, and before that July 2025. Turning up in Kakaʻako on the strength of a monthly listing gets you an empty street.

Liliha Bakery is open 24 hours

None of the six locations is. The original on Kuakini runs 6am to 10pm, and every other branch closes at 10pm or earlier. This is possibly the most commonly repeated wrong fact about Honolulu on the internet.

Wailana Coffee House is the late-night spot

It closed in October 2018 after forty-nine years. It is still listed in a Honolulu magazine late-night dining guide whose publish date is 2013 — which tells you what to make of that guide generally.

Art After Dark at the art museum

Replaced, not cancelled. It is HoMA Nights now, every Friday 6–9pm in the central courtyard.

And three that are on a different island

All three rank for Hawaiʻi-at-night searches. None of them is anywhere near Honolulu.

Swimming with manta rays at night

Kona, on Hawaiʻi Island, only. Every operator running it is based in Kailua-Kona. There is no Oʻahu manta night snorkel, and this is the biggest cross-island trap in the whole "Hawaiʻi at night" search.

Watching the lava glow after dark

Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, also Hawaiʻi Island, about two hundred miles and a flight away.

Stargazing on Mauna Kea

Hawaiʻi Island. The Oʻahu equivalents are the Bishop Museum planetarium and the astronomical society’s park star parties — much lower, and under a lot more light.

How this was checked

Only things that happen on a fixed night are on this page. That is the whole design — a list of everything that exists is not much use at half past six on a Tuesday, and it is what every other page on this subject already gives you.

Each entry records whether the venue publishes the schedule itself, because that is the difference between a listing that will still be true next month and one that will not. Kani Ka Pila names an artist for every night of the week on the resort’s own page. The run clubs do not publish anywhere, so that card says to check before you turn up in running shoes.

The closing times matter more than the activities. Lifeguards go home at 6:30pm across the whole island while midsummer sunset is 7:18pm — so the last three quarters of an hour of daylight are unguarded everywhere, which no evening guide we found mentions.

Sunset times are US Naval Observatory. Licensing hours are the Honolulu Liquor Commission. Park closing hours are the City’s own published list, district by district, and there is no island-wide time — the sign at that park governs. Our verification standards cover the rest.

Weekly nights get cancelled quietly and we would rather hear it from you than find it in six months. Tell us if one of these has stopped.

First Friday, in full →Evening classes with a drink Where to eat first