“Life is a festival only to the wise,” Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote.

With over 10,000 festivals, including some of the world’s biggest and strangest, Germany is certainly a place sagacious souls can appreciate.

From the raucous parties of Karnival to the acclaimed Berlinale film festival to the famously merry Christmas markets, there’s something in Germany’s festival calendar to suit everyone’s tastes.

Some of the traditional German celebrations include Bayreuth’s Richard Wagner Festival, Munich’s restrained commemoration of beer, Oktoberfest, the world’s largest trade fair for books in Frankfurt, Bonn’s Beethoven Festival and the Munich Opera Festival.

Since the mid-1980s, however, there has been a rapid expansion of new, more niche-market festivals in Germany. Night owls and museum geeks can revel together during Berlin’s Long Night of the Museums, an eve when the city’s museums and cultural institutions stay open into the wee hours. Fans of avant-garde film can fill their heads with new, esoteric anecdotes at Videonale, Bonn’s festival for art and experimental videos. Even secret Dungeons and Dragons-lovers can find a home at Bavaria’s medieval re-enactment festival Festival-Mediaval.

Whether you’re just visiting Germany or have lived here for a while, attending a festival can be an easy and exciting way to discover German culture. To help get you started, we are giving you a helping hand by highlighting some of the most important and interesting festivals, carnivals, music, film, art and cultural events in Germany in 2011.  

January

Karnival
January and February, 2011
Various places throughout Germany

The 40-day period before Ash Wednesday, when Lent begins, is also Karnival season in Germany: a time when the typically orderly Germans let loose and party. Parades, costume balls, and other such festivities take place throughout the country, often varying widely according to local traditions. Cologne, for instance, is well known for its Rosenmontag celebration, when elaborately decorated floats, tractors, bands and marchers cohere to parade down a 6-kilometer route through the city centre. Munich, Düsseldorf and Mainz also have notable celebrations.

February

Berlinale International Film Festival
February 9-19, 2012
Berlin

The world's second largest film festival after Cannes, the Berlinale draws together more than 19,000 film professionals from 120 countries. The festival showcases a wide variety of films, including big international movies, independent and art house productions, movies aimed at younger audiences, German productions and more experimental films.

www.berlinale.de/en/HomePage.html

  March

SKArneval Koblenz
(Information to be posted)
Koblenz

Hosted at the Circus Maximus, SKArneval Koblenz is a festival drawing together ska, 2-Tone, reggae, rock and punk acts.

http://skarneval.myfriendharvey.de/

Honky Tonk Pub Festival
March/ November, 2012
Various sites around Germany

Touted as the biggest pub festival in Europe, the Honky Tonk Pub Festival hosts over 100 bands of various genres for an extended blow out party in the bars, restaurants and hotels of Germany towns and cities. There's often even a shuttle bus to get you from drinking hole to drinking hole!

http://honky-tonk.de/


The Leipzig Book Fair
March 15-18, 2012
Leipzig

The Leipzig Book Fair is the second largest book fair in Germany after Frankfurt. The fair is partially a trade fair but also holds a concurrent event called Leipzig Reads—a festival of literature with over 1,900 readings and activities.

www.leipziger-messe.de/LeMMon/buch_web_eng.nsf

Thuringia Bach Festival
30 March - 22 April, 2012
Sites throughout the Free State of Thuringia, including Erfurt, Eisenach and Weimar

The Thuringia Bach Festival specializes in Baroque music and, of course, the music of its titular honouree: Johann Sebastian Bach. Part of this festival's draw is that it hosts concerts in venues where Bach once roamed, including the church where he was baptized, the church where he was married, and in sites where he composed much of his early work.

www.thueringer-bachwochen.de/index.html

April

Videonale
Videonale 13
(Waiting for update)

Bonn

The Videonale is an art video and experimental film festival held in Bonn. The festival also presents a large exhibition of installation art as well as panel discussion on current topics in media art.

www.videonale.org/

Munich Ballet Week
22 - 29 April 2012
Munich

Perhaps the most exciting time of the year for the Bavarian State Ballet is Munich Ballet Week, when they, along with other international companies, put on a week's worth of performances for enchanted audiences. Over the last few decades, this event has become one of the most prestigious of its kind, drawing visitors from across Europe and beyond.

This year's programme features: John Neumeier's new version of the epitome of classical Ballet: Illusions - like Swan lake, Nacho Duato´s Multiplicity - Forms of Silence and Emptiness and John Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew.

www.bayerische.staatsoper.de

Walpurgisnacht Festivals
April 30-May 1
Various places throughout Germany

Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night), celebrated on April 30 or May 1, is a traditional holiday marked in Germany, Sweden, Finland and many other Baltic states. In German folklore, Walpurgisnacht is when witches meet on the Brocken mountain, the highest peak in the Harz mountains, and hold revels with their gods. Contemporary celebrations are somewhat like Halloween: children dress up as witches and monsters, teenagers concoct elaborate pranks, and public bonfires are held. Noise, it is believed, drives out the evil spirits, so this is not a night to go to bed early!

May

International Dixieland Festival Dresden
15 - 20 May 2012
Dresden

Many a saintly visitor goes marching in to Dresden in early May to check out the city's festival of Dixieland and early jazz music. Known particularly for its open-air events on the Elbe River, the festival boasts over 350 artists every year; this year is its 41st. Don't forget to drop by the Dixie parade and to catch a show by one of the city’s many street performers!

www.dixieland.de/epages/61202883.sf/en_GB/

Bonn Summer Festival
May to late October
Bonn

You know a city is dedicated to celebration when it's summer festival lasts not days, not weeks, but five months. The Bonn Summer Festival, or “Bonner Summer,” is the bustling city's main summer festival. The festival is open air and free. Its over 100 events focus mainly on celebrating cultural diversity, with concerts, performances, fireworks and other activities taking place all around the city. One of the festival’s most interesting offerings is a program of silent films, scored by live music, that are screened in the university courtyard.

www.bonn.de/    

Also:

The Rhine in Flames fireworks festival, particularly in Koblenz (May-September).

Bonn: 5 May 2012, Ruedesheim-Bingen 7 Julay 2012, Spay-Koblenz 11 August 2012, Oberwesel 8 September 2012, St.Goar-St.Goarshausen 15 September 2012.

/www.rhein-in-flammen.com/de/koblenz.html  

Red Wine Festival in Rudesheim (mid- to late May).

17-20 August 2012: Rüdesheimer Weinfest
www.rudesheim.de    
 

International Africa Festival
25 - 28 May
Würzburg

This international Afro roots festival is Europe’s biggest festival for African music and culture. The celebration features concerts, a bazaar, an artisans' fair and a film and lecture programme. In 2011 the Africa Festival will go on a journey to different islands of the Caribbean. Musicians, artists and DJs from Aruba, Barbados, Curaçao, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago - to name just a few - will present the culture and music of their countries

www.africafestival.org

Carnival of Cultures Berlin
25 - 28 May 2012 (27 May is the street parade)

Berlin

This vibrant, four-day street festival aims at celebrating and opening dialogue with and between Berlin's diverse ethnic communities. Over 5,000 performers, from amateur to professional, flood the streets and stages of Kreuzberg and parties take place all over the city. The main stage is at Blücherplatz and the children's stage is at Mariannenplatz.

www.karneval-berlin.de

June

Pride Week and Christopher Street Day
Christopher Street Day is June 26, 2012
Various places throughout Germany, especially in Berlin

Christopher Street Day (CSD) is the name for the gay pride celebrations that happen throughout Germany, but perhaps most prominently in Berlin. The celebration takes its name from the street where, in 1969 New York City, queers spontaneously decided to stand up and demonstrate against a police raid of a queer bar, the Stonewall Inn. The event became a watershed moment for (some say the beginning of) the American gay rights movement.

The Christopher Street Day celebrations in Berlin include a parade, complete with floats, live DJs and marchers. Pride Week takes place in the week leading up to CSD. Its programming has both political and social events, including a soccer tournament, AIDS and gay activism information booths, and party boats that float down the Spree. There are also more alternative festivals, such as Transgenial CSD, that run simultaneously to the official Pride celebrations that attract many left-wing, alternative queer participants.

www.csd-berlin.de
www.prideweek-berlin.de/
http://transgenialercsd.de/seite1.htm

June/ July

Folk im Schlosshof
28 - 30 June 2012
Bonfeld

One of Germany's best Celtic folk and folk rock festivals, this quirky event is held in a castle courtyard. Along with a bevy of acts, Folk im Schlosshof also boasts a chance to participate in whiskey tasting, Irish tap dance and instrumental workshops.

www.folk-im-schlosshof.de/

Rheingau Music Festival
(no dates published so far)
Rheingau

With more than 120,000 annual visitors and 100 events, this classical music festival is one of the most prominent of its kind. The festival takes place in the picturesque region between Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Rüdesheim and Lorch. It has recently been expanded to include music played on ancient instruments, jazz and works by contemporary composers.

www.rheingau-musik-festival.de/start.php

Also:

Handel Festival in Halle (31 May - 10 June 2012).
www.haendelfestspiele.halle.de/de

Mozart Festival in Wurzburg (1 June - 1 July 2012).
www.mozartfest.de

Bach Festival in Leipzig (7- 17 July 2012).
www.bach-leipzig.de

Tollwood Festival

 

Stuttgart Jazz Open
5 - 14 July
Stuttgart

This one week international jazz festival has hosted the likes of Ornette Coleman, B.B. King, Lauryn Hill, and Paul Simon. A swinging time for all!

www.jazzopen.com/

December

Christmas Markets (Weihnachtsmarkts)
December
Various places throughout Germany

Nearly every German city and village sets up a Christmas market during the Advent season. Giving you a reason to brace the cold, visitors can ride a Ferris wheel, browse through the stands selling handicrafts, wooden toys and ceramics, sample the hot mulled wine (glühwein) and warm chestnuts or just absorb the merry atmosphere. These fairs have proved so popular that other countries have started copying the German-Austrian tradition. Notable Christmas markets are in Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg, Lubeck, Munster, Stuttgart and Heidelberg.

Reard our special on the main Christmas markets in Germany.

For a listing of all of the markets, check out  www.germany-christmas-market.org.uk/

Jessica Dorrance/ Expatica

Updated December 2012

 
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