Choose the Right Citrawarna Speed Festival Venue

Choose IOI City Mall Putrajaya for the broadest confirmed Citrawarna Speed Festival programme. Choose KLIA Terminal 1 if you are already at the airport, or Sama-Sama Hotel KLIA if you are staying there. For the public racing-simulator competition, semi-finals, grand final or Colours of Parade, go directly to IOI City Mall.

The festival runs from 23 September to 4 October 2026, with free admission. Tourism Malaysia identifies IOI City Mall as the main venue, while KLIA Terminal 1 and Sama-Sama Hotel host side activities (official event listing). The venues are not interchangeable: the most detailed programme, including the simulator competition and 3 October parade, is at IOI City Mall.

Select where you are starting and what you want to see; the tool identifies the best-supported venue.

Match the Venue to Your Plans

IOI City Mall is the safest choice when the festival itself is the purpose of the trip. It has four announced activity zones, the complete published simulator schedule, the parade and the closing automotive activation. The airport venues make more sense when they fit an existing flight or hotel itinerary.

That distinction matters because a reference to activities at all three festival locations does not establish that every activity runs at every location or at the same time. The organisers have released substantially more detail for IOI City Mall than for KLIA Terminal 1 or Sama-Sama Hotel.

IOI City Mall Has the Main Festival Programme

IOI City Mall has four announced festival zones. Each occupies a different part of the mall, so visitors coming for one specific activity should use the named zone rather than treating the entire building as a single event space.

The four-zone programme is the clearest evidence that IOI City Mall is the main venue rather than simply one of three equal locations. A visitor who has not chosen a particular activity can move among several confirmed programme areas without transferring to another property.

The mall is also the only venue with a detailed public simulator timetable in the published material. It hosts the headline parade on 3 October and the announced closing activation on 4 October. Neither airport location has an equally detailed day-by-day public programme.

This does not mean every IOI City Mall activity runs throughout the festival or throughout the mall’s opening hours. The organisers have published exact times for the simulator programme and parade, but not a complete daily schedule for the arts, cultural performances, virtual-reality sessions or mascot appearances.

Simulator Racers Should Go to Lower Ground, East Court

The dedicated public simulator programme is at Lower Ground, East Court, IOI City Mall. The official Speed Festival site lists free-play and qualifying sessions from 23 September through 2 October.

These times apply to the free-play and qualifying programme through 2 October. They should not be carried over to 3 October, when the competition moves to its final-day schedule.

On 3 October, practice and public free play run from 10am–1pm. The semi-finals follow from 2pm–5pm, and the grand final runs from 6pm–9pm. The awards ceremony is scheduled for 9pm–10pm.

Public play is free, but racers must register. The festival site provides adult and junior registration forms and also refers to kiosk registration. Free admission to the wider festival therefore should not be read as automatic entry into a racing session without sign-up.

Spectators who want to see the competitive stages rather than try free play should favour the afternoon and evening of 3 October. Anyone seeking the regular three-session qualifying format should attend no later than 2 October, because the published programme changes on the following day.

The available information does not give a matching competition schedule for KLIA Terminal 1 or Sama-Sama Hotel. Although simulator sessions are among the airport-side activities reported, that does not make those locations substitutes for the dedicated East Court competition.

The Colours of Parade Is at IOI City Mall

The Colours of Parade starts at 8:30pm on 3 October at IOI City Mall. The announced programme involves 1,500 dancers and cultural performers. This is the clearest venue choice for visitors whose priority is a large cultural performance rather than an airport-side activity.

The parade takes place after the simulator grand final’s published 6pm–9pm window has begun and before the 9pm–10pm awards ceremony. The source material confirms the parade start time but does not provide enough operational detail to promise that a visitor can watch every part of both programmes. They occupy separate announced parts of the mall programme, and no transfer or viewing-time guidance has been published.

A closing activation involving about 100 Lamborghinis is scheduled for 4 October. The announcement does not provide a start time (Tourism Malaysia festival announcement). Visitors should not assume that it follows the simulator timetable or begins when the mall opens.

The difference between these two headline events is practical: the parade has a confirmed date and start time, while the Lamborghini activation has a confirmed date and approximate scale but no published start time. A trip built around the closing activation therefore requires a same-day schedule check.

From Kuala Lumpur, Use Putrajaya Sentral for the Rail-Led Route

For a rail-led trip from central Kuala Lumpur, connect to the MRT Putrajaya Line and ride to Putrajaya Sentral. From there, continue to IOI City Mall by taxi or ride-hailing.

IOI City Mall estimates the road portion from Putrajaya Sentral at about 15 minutes. That is the mall’s estimate for the road leg, not a guarantee of total transfer time. It does not include the MRT journey, waiting for the onward vehicle or delays on the way to the mall.

The mall says its own shuttle service has ceased until further notice, so an itinerary should not depend on finding a mall shuttle at Putrajaya Sentral (mall access information). The remaining transfer needs to be arranged separately.

The mall publishes daily opening hours of 10am–10pm. These are building hours, not confirmation that all Citrawarna activities run continuously from opening to closing. Visitors coming for the simulator can use its published session times. Visitors coming for cultural performances, virtual reality or mascot appearances do not yet have an equivalent complete timetable.

For the 8:30pm parade on 3 October, the published mall closing time leaves a limited period after the announced start. The material supplied by the organisers does not state the parade’s duration, so it is not possible to calculate a precise finishing or departure time from the confirmed information alone.

KLIA Venues Work Best as Part of an Airport Stay

KLIA Terminal 1 and Sama-Sama Hotel KLIA are side-activity locations rather than the main festival site. Reported airport-area programming includes cultural dances, automotive displays, traditional games such as gasing and congkak, and simulator sessions (Bernama’s venue report).

The available report groups these activities with the airport venues but does not provide a dependable location-by-location and day-by-day timetable. It should not be read as confirmation that every listed activity is available at both KLIA Terminal 1 and Sama-Sama Hotel at any chosen time.

Choose KLIA Terminal 1 when you are already there for an arrival or departure and want to see whatever festival activity is operating without making a dedicated journey to Putrajaya. Choose Sama-Sama Hotel KLIA when you are staying at the hotel and convenience matters more than accessing the full main-venue programme.

Neither airport venue is the strongest choice for a visitor travelling specifically from Kuala Lumpur for Citrawarna. Tourism Malaysia labels IOI City Mall as the main venue, and the organisers have not published airport schedules comparable with the mall’s simulator timetable, parade time and named activity zones.

Flight requirements take priority over the side programme. Keep check-in, immigration and boarding buffers fixed rather than reducing them to fit an activity with no confirmed time. If a connection might allow a landside visit, first assess the usable interval with this KLIA layover guide.

Several Cultural Activity Times Remain Unconfirmed

As of 30 September 2026, the organisers have published the 3 October parade time and a detailed IOI City Mall simulator timetable. They have not published a dependable public daily timetable covering cultural dances, music, artist appearances, arts-and-crafts activity, virtual reality and mascots across all three venues.

The airport sessions also lack confirmed public times in the cited material. Free admission and the overall 23 September–4 October festival dates do not establish that any particular side activity operates continuously across that period.

The confirmed information supports three firm decisions. Use IOI City Mall for the broadest programme. Use East Court there for the public simulator competition. Use an airport venue only when its location fits an existing Terminal 1 or Sama-Sama Hotel itinerary and you can accept a less detailed schedule.

If one cultural performance or artist appearance is the sole reason for travelling, check the official Citrawarna Instagram linked from Tourism Malaysia’s event listing before setting out. A fresh programme notice is necessary because the current published sources do not supply the missing times.