Entertainment & Nightlife in Maui

Good to Know

• South Maui (Kihei/Wailea) has become the island's main nightlife hub since Lahaina's historic Front Street area was devastated by the August 2023 wildfire and remains under reconstruction — check current status before planning an evening around West Maui.
• If you're staying in a Kihei vacation rental, many of the main bars sit along South Kihei Road and are walkable, which is a genuine advantage since almost everything else on Maui requires a car.
• Maui's bar scene overall is casual and low-key rather than club-oriented — expect live local music, sunset happy hours, and dive bars over dance clubs or a big late-night circuit.
• Some Kihei dive bars lean into an 'unvarnished' local reputation (occasional rowdiness has been noted at at least one spot) — fine for most visitors but worth knowing going in.
• Maui's music-festival scene skews small, free, and cultural rather than large commercial festivals — don't expect a Coachella- or Ultra-style event; the biggest draws are free showcases of traditional Hawaiian music.
• The Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival – Maui Style is the closest thing Maui has to a signature music festival: it's free, family-friendly, and has run for over three decades at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului.
• Exact dates for these festivals shift slightly year to year and even across different official listings for the same year, so confirm on the Maui Arts & Cultural Center's own site (mauiarts.org) close to your travel dates rather than relying on a single calendar site.
• The long-running Maui Film Festival (a separate, non-music event) ended its run after 2024 following a bankruptcy filing, replaced in 2026 by the new Wailuku Film Festival — worth knowing if older guides still reference the old event.