A traditional festival associated with the fishing community of Macao, the Drunken Dragon Festival is one of the few major festivals that connect the World Heritage city of Macao to its maritime past. The festival is celebrated once a year by a dwindling number of people involved in activities associated with fishing industry. The festival takes place in several locations in the city linked historically with the industry. A big attraction of the festival is the Drunken Dragon Dance, performed by a small group of young and old men. In recent years, the Macao government has started to patronize the dance by funding performances in various parts of the city on a regular basis. These new places have no connection with the traditional cultural spaces of the festival, but are places frequented by many of the twenty-eight million tourists that visit the city every year. The government funding provides the much needed financial support to the performers. However, it is argued that the dance is becoming an entertaining activity for tourists and is gradually moving away from its traditional roots. Through interviews with the performers, community members associated with the festival and government officials and observations of performances in both traditional and tourism contexts, this paper discusses the impacts of such government intervention and attempts to identify the issues of safeguarding an important intangible heritage of Macao whose values are directly connected to the tangible dimensions of the city.