Tubô Cebu Art Fair 2026: 40 Booths, Free Entry, and a Portrait for ₱100
Forty booths on the Activity Center floor at Ayala Center Cebu, free to walk in, and a handwritten sign at one of them offering a live portrait for ₱100 in fifteen minutes. Photographed at 2:40 PM on the last day.
The Activity Center at Ayala Center Cebu has spent four days as a white maze. Temporary walls, forty booths, paintings hung frame to frame from knee height to well above eye level, and enough foot traffic that the aisles move at a shuffle. This is Tubô Cebu Art Fair 2026. It is free, it is upstairs from the food, and it closes tonight at 9 PM.
Go for the small work. The serious canvases are on the walls and priced accordingly, but the thing worth knowing before walking in is that a hundred pesos buys something real here, which is not true of most art fairs anywhere.
What is actually on the floor
The main section is called Encounters and it fills the Activity Center: forty booths numbered R01 to R40, laid out in a loose horseshoe around the open middle. Galleries, collectives, art spaces and individual artists share the same white panels, which flattens the hierarchy in a useful way. A booth run by one painter sits next to a booth run by a gallery, at the same size, under the same lighting.
Kimsoy Yap and Friends holds R01. Fred Galan and Friends is R02. Watercolor Society of Cebu is R29, UP Cebu Joya Gallery is R14, and the Toledo Neo Artists Group came in from the west coast for R20. Guimaras took two booths, R03 and R18, to campaign for VIVA ExCon 2027. The full numbered list is at the bottom of this page, because the fair prints it on a wall and nowhere else.
The work does not sort neatly into a house style, which is the honest thing to say about it. Watercolour landscapes hang three booths away from vinyl toys. There is a wall of small oil studies, a wood relief of a woman in a headdress, welded figures made of scrap and wire on plinths, and a set of flat, bright folk panels shaped like the back of a jeepney.
What things cost
Entry is free. That is the first number and it matters, because it is what makes the fair usable as an afternoon rather than a purchase.
At one of the watercolour booths the price list is a piece of paper taped to the table, written by hand: big prints ₱200, small prints ₱100. Loose prints stand in wooden racks and buyers flip through them the way people flip through records. Checked 31 August 2026.
Near the escalator someone was holding a cardboard sign above a seated crowd: LIVE, and under it in marker, ₱100, 15 mins. A live portrait, drawn while the subject sits, for the price of a coffee. That was at 2:41 PM and there was a queue.
Set against that is the Signature Collection, a separately curated wall of established Visayan artists where the prices sit on small printed labels rather than on cardboard, and the numbers are a different order of magnitude. Original paintings in the booths carry printed labels too. Nobody is hiding anything, but nobody is shouting the numbers either, so ask.
The book tables are the sleeper
Two long tables near the middle carry zines, art books, risograph prints, stickers and independent publishing from Cebu and beyond. This is where the fair is least like a mall event: a stack of hand bound things, a book on the Doctrina Christiana and baybayin, small runs that will not be reprinted. It is also the cheapest part of the room after the print racks.
Tubô Talks, and the part most visitors walk past
At the far end there is a small stage with rows of chairs and a fiber installation hanging over it, running a program called Tubô Talks. The panel on the last afternoon was titled Beyond the Studio: Building Ecosystems Where Artists Can Thrive. Around thirty people sat through it while several hundred walked past to look at paintings.
That is the fair’s actual argument, and it is in the name. Tubô is Cebuano for grow. The fair has run under that name since 2018 on the premise that a Cebuano art scene needs more than talent. It needs somewhere to show, somewhere to sell, and somewhere for a nineteen year old with a folder of prints to stand behind a table next to a gallery. Whether that is working is visible on the floor. The nineteen year old is there. So is the gallery.
It is the same instinct behind the Padayon shirt, one Cebuano word for keeping going, which is the whole business model of an artist run fair written on a chest.
The Image of the Fair
A single large collaborative painting hangs behind a rope near the entrance, made by several of the exhibiting artists together and used as the year’s image. It is worth walking to first, because it sets the theme the rest of the floor is answering. This year that theme is Resonance, which the fair glosses as the way a work keeps moving after the moment it is encountered.
If you are going tonight
When. Tubô Cebu Art Fair 2026 ran 28 to 31 August. Today is the last day and the floor closes at 9 PM. Checked 31 August 2026.
Where. The Activity Center of Ayala Center Cebu, in Cebu Business Park. 10.3182° N, 123.9053° E. Follow the white panels, and walk one level up to look down before diving in, because there is more of the fair than is visible from the floor.
Cost. Free to enter. Artworks are for sale on the spot, and the fair sells online as well.
Getting there. Jeepney routes 03Q from Mabolo, 04L from JY Square in Lahug and 06H from Guadalupe all stop at the mall, ₱13 minimum fare, checked August 2026. Full detail in the Cebu City jeepney guide.
What to expect. It was busy on the last afternoon. Aisles between booths run single file in places, and the good small prints go first, so the ₱100 racks are thinner on day four than they were on day one.
The full exhibitor list, R01 to R40
R01 Kimsoy Yap & Friends. R02 Fred Galan & Friends. R03 VIVA ExCon Guimaras 2027. R04 Dajon Studio Gallery. R05 CK Collectives. R06 Art Ku. R07 Fragile House. R08 FiLArts. R09 Luyo Space. R10 Designers & Art Toys PH. R11 Lost Books. R12 Queen Wei & Young Artists. R13 ARUIZ Art & Company. R14 UP Cebu Joya Gallery. R15 Peter M. Bruce. R16 Grida K-Pop Art Inc. R17 Inato Art Depart. R18 VIVA ExCon Guimaras 2027. R19 Kabkad. R20 Toledo Neo Artists Group.
R21 Melanie Impas. R22 Felix Catarata. R23 Pierre Famador. R24 Jan Sunday. R25 Enric Callangan. R26 Bohol Pop. R27 Art Portal. R28 Ed Solana. R29 Watercolor Society of Cebu. R30 Artists Beyond Borders. R31 Marianne Guinto. R32 Galerie Inatu. R33 Aliver Escano. R34 Piskay. R35 Ripe Concepts Art Club. R36 Afterform. R37 LOMi Art. R38 Happy Garaje. R39 Writer’s Block. R40 Love of Christ, Community for Children.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tubô Cebu Art Fair free?
Yes. Entry is free for all four days. Checked 31 August 2026.
Where is Tubô Cebu Art Fair held?
The Activity Center of Ayala Center Cebu, in Cebu Business Park, Cebu City.
What time does the fair close?
9 PM on 31 August 2026, the last day of the 2026 edition.
How much does the art cost?
From ₱100 up to serious gallery money. One booth sells small prints at ₱100 and big prints at ₱200, and a live portrait was ₱100 for fifteen minutes. Original paintings carry printed labels, and the Signature Collection wall is where the established Visayan names sit.
What does Tubô mean?
Grow, in Cebuano. The fair has run under that name since 2018.
Who organises Tubô Cebu Art Fair?
The Arts Council of Cebu Foundation with Ayala Center Cebu, backed by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation and other Cebu sponsors.
Nearby, if the mall is your base
Ayala Center Cebu: a guide to the mall in the middle of a rebuild covers the venue itself, including the Terraces and the current hours. The Cebu Heritage Monument is a short jeepney ride away and is the other place in the city where Cebuano history is something you can walk around.
Suroy WearWear the storyOne Cebuano word, printed once, worn until it means something. The Statement Series runs on the same instinct as the fair.Wear the story
