Dong Grand Song performances take place in Zhaoxing at the cultural performance venue near the centre of the village, typically in the evening. The performance is scheduled for tourists and includes both singing and demonstrations of Dong traditional dress, but the music itself is genuine: the singers are community members who have learned the repertoire through the Dong tradition of communal singing practice from childhood, and the polyphonic complexity of the sound does not come from staging.
The experience of the singing, particularly in the evening in an enclosed space, is unlike anything most visitors have heard before. The interlocking harmonies are dense and precise; the effect is both intricate and elemental. Even a short performance — the tourist version is around 40 minutes — gives a clear sense of why this tradition has been maintained for centuries and why UNESCO's listing acknowledges it as something without equivalent. The singing is included in the village entrance fee.