Tequila Don Julio is sponsoring EVOKE Festival, a Halloween electronic music event at The New Hung Hom Harbourfront in Hong Kong on October 31, 2026, its second consecutive year behind the show.
The festival is produced by Social Club Series, a Hong Kong events company, and multiple outlets including Vogue Hong Kong and Tatler Asia reported that Don Julio is partnering with the organizer to stage what is being billed as the city's first open-air festival built around a 270 degree view of Victoria Harbour. Tickets are sold through Riffspass, with general admission priced at HK$688.
What EVOKE Festival includes this year
The event is split into two parts. The waterfront program, described by event guide Eventist as running from 4pm to 10:30pm, is followed by an afterparty at Soho House Hong Kong from 11pm to 4am for holders of GA Plus tickets and above, which are priced at HK$888. The main stage lineup includes DJs Arcando, Genesi and Tim Bliss against the harbour skyline, with Día de Muertos styling woven through the set design, lasers and a costumed dance parade, according to lifestyle guide The HK Hub. The afterparty is headlined by the Amsterdam DJ Solance. Several listings describe the Hung Hom site as a harbourfront location not previously used for a music festival in the city.
How Don Julio has built out its Hong Kong Día de Muertos push
The EVOKE sponsorship is one piece of a wider seasonal campaign the brand has run in Hong Kong for at least two years. In 2025, the South China Morning Post reported that Don Julio hosted guest bartending shifts and signature cocktails across three Hong Kong venues, DarkSide, Dragonfly and The Opposites, with Marco Porras of the bar Hibol taking over The Opposites on October 30 and Dragonfly on November 1 as part of that rollout. This year the brand has paired the EVOKE sponsorship with a separate dining tie-in at the Hong Kong restaurant Mott 32, working with HE.r, the late-night concept at the restaurant created by DJs Cocoa Zhou and Alex Nude, for a Halloween: Día de Muertos event also scheduled for October 31. Coverage of the EVOKE activation has also described a collaboration between Don Julio and Bar Mauro, a Mexico City venue that industry body 50 Best ranked second on its North America's 50 Best Bars 2026 list behind New York's Sip & Guzzle, on a cocktail created for the festival.
Who owns Don Julio
Don Julio is named for its founder, Julio González-Frausto Estrada, who began distilling tequila in 1942 at age 17, according to Wikipedia's account of the brand. The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails records that construction on the current distillery began in 1947 and that González registered his first brand, a mixto called Tres Magueyes, four years later; the 100 percent agave Tequila Don Julio was introduced to family and friends in 1985 for the founder's sixtieth birthday and launched commercially two years after that. Production is tied to the La Primavera distillery, registered under Mexico's NOM system as NOM 1449, in the municipality of Atotonilco el Alto, Jalisco.
Ownership passed through several multinational hands. Diageo already held a 50 percent stake in Don Julio by 2014 after acquiring Seagram's spirits portfolio years earlier, and a Diageo filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that November set out an agreement to take full global ownership and control of Tequila Don Julio from Jose Cuervo's parent, Casa Cuervo, with the deal structured as a net payment of $408 million to Diageo on completion, expected in early 2015. The arrangement also ended Casa Cuervo's agreement to produce and distribute Diageo's Smirnoff vodka in Mexico, and sent the Bushmills Irish whiskey brand to Jose Cuervo Overseas in the same transaction. Diageo, based in London, has owned Don Julio outright since that deal closed.
What this means
The EVOKE deal fits a pattern of global tequila owners leaning on nightlife and festival sponsorships to build brand presence in Asian markets rather than relying on retail alone. Readers curious about the liquid behind the marketing can find Don Julio Blanco in Tequila Watch's database, where it carries a published TW Score of 62 of 95.