upcoming events and festivals in the south of france - summer 2026

The Feria de Pentecôte is the largest street festival in France. More than a million people pass through Nîmes over six days, which sounds like a reason to stay away... but is actually a reason to go ... because the atmosphere that a million people in a good mood generate in a Roman city in the south of France in late May is not something you replicate anywhere else.

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The festival runs from Wednesday 20 to Monday 25 May, filling the Roman arena and the entire historic centre with six corridas, two novilladas, a course camarguaise, and the famous bodegas ... open-air bars that fill the squares around the arenas from early afternoon until very late.

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The corrida is the controversial heart of the whole thing. We'll be honest: it divides people, and the division is reasonable. Luckily, you don't have to go inside the arenas to have the experience of the Feria. The streets are the point. Bodegas open on the Place du Marché, the Esplanade, and around the arenas, with free concerts on Place Charles-de-Gaulle and at the Square de la Couronne, parades of peñas, costumed parades, and the grand bandido ... a lâcher de taureaux through a secured street ... which launches the whole thing on Wednesday evening.

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The bandido is the moment to see. Camargue bulls and white horses, gardians in traditional dress, running through the old streets of a Roman city while the crowd watches from behind wooden barriers. It's theatrical and genuine at the same time, which is harder to achieve than it sounds.

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Seats in the arenas range from around €25 for the upper sunny sections to over €220 for the front-row shade. The novillada morning sessions are the most accessible, starting from €15–20. If you want to understand the culture, the morning novillada is the place to start.

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What to know before you go: Book accommodation in Nîmes several months in advance... the city fills up. If you're staying nearby and coming in for the day, arrive before noon and leave your car outside the centre. Wear something you don't mind getting a drink spilled on. Eat before 7pm because the restaurant queues after that are considerable. The bodegas serve food ... cassoulet, paella, gardianne de taureau ... but the queues are long. The best thing to do is eat at a restaurant off the main drag in the early evening and then join the street party afterwards.

Montpellier's private courtyards ... the hôtels particuliers of the historic centre, usually closed to the public ... open their doors for five days in June to host installations by architects and designers. The Festival des Architectures Vives transforms the city's lanes into an open-air exhibition, using these rarely seen spaces as backdrops for temporary architectural installations.

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It's free. It's genuinely surprising. And it's a way of seeing a Montpellier that even many people who live here have never seen ... the hidden courtyards and private gardens behind the street facades of the old city.

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What to know: Pick up a map at the tourist office. The installations are spread across the centre, and you'll walk several kilometres. Go on a weekday morning for the most space.

A two-day jazz festival in the park at Le Triadou, at the foot of the Pic Saint-Loup. This year marks the festival's 25th anniversary. The setting ... vineyards, the distinctive limestone peak, an outdoor stage ... is better than the festival's profile suggests it should be.

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If you're interested in wine, music, and the particular quality of a summer evening in the garrigue, this is a very good two days.

From 11 June to 26 July, the Roman arenas in Nîmes become one of the most extraordinary concert venues in the world. The 29th edition of the Festival de Nîmes has a lineup that is, by any measure, extraordinary.

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On the bill for 2026: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts, Black Eyed Peas, The Pixies, Lorde, Jamiroquai, and heaps more. Across seven weeks.

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Inside a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre.

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We've been to concerts here. And we are going again this year. The experience of sitting in those stone seats as the sun goes down and the lights come up on the stage below is ... and we don't use this word lightly ... unforgettable. The acoustics are remarkable. The history is present in a way that doesn't feel like tourism. It's a live-music experience with very few equivalents anywhere.

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Tickets start from around €46 for the cheaper sections and go up from there depending on the artist and position. Book early. The headline acts sell out.

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What to know: Arrive early enough to eat in Nîmes before the show ... the restaurants in the city are excellent and much better than anything you'll find around the arenas post-concert. Sitting in the arenas in the late afternoon, watching the musicians arrive, waiting for the night to fall ... this is, as the city describes it, when the Festival de Nîmes begins.

Sète is a fishing port on a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean and the Étang de Thau, about 30 minutes from Montpellier. It's one of the most characterful towns in the region ... genuinely working, genuinely beautiful, full of seafood and boat paint and the particular smell of a working harbour in summer.

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The Worldwide Festival, now in its 20th year, is curated by DJ and music producer Gilles Peterson and Freshly Cut, a Montpellier-based events company. It's one of the best French festivals for modern jazz, funk, and world music. Day events take place on the city beach; night shows at the Théâtre de la Mer.

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The Théâtre de la Mer is an open-air amphitheatre on the corniche ... a former coastal fortress with the Mediterranean directly behind the stage. Music at night, from a stage where the sea is the backdrop. The lineup is announced closer to the date.

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If you're in the region at the end of June and you have any interest in electronic music, world music, or jazz, this is the event to arrange your week around.

Montpellier Danse runs from 20 June to 4 July 2026, transforming the city into an international capital of contemporary dance. It's been doing this for over 40 years, and it remains one of the most significant dance festivals in Europe ... not because of its size, but because of the quality of programming and the way it uses the city's spaces.

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Performances happen in theatres, courtyards, parks, and public squares. Some of it is challenging. Some of it is extraordinarily beautiful. All of it is better than you'd expect if you don't normally go to contemporary dance.

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wo weeks of classical music, jazz, and contemporary composition, most of it free. Concerts take place across Montpellier from 5 to 18 July. The outdoor evening concerts in the city are among the best free events in the region ... professional programming at no cost, in beautiful summer settings.

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This is the one to recommend to guests who want culture alongside their wine and food. A free concert under the Montpellier sky on a warm July evening is a very good evening.

The 29th edition of Fiest'A Sète runs from 18 July to 3 August, with a first week of free concerts in Poussan and Sète before six themed evenings at the Théâtre de la Mer featuring international artists and new talent.

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Where Worldwide Festival is electronic and jazz-leaning, Fiest'A Sète covers North African, Mediterranean, and world music traditions ... rai, gnawa, flamenco, and everything in between. The combination of these two festivals means Sète has the most interesting music programming of any town of its size in France for most of the summer.

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Sète also hosts water jousting festivals during this period ... an ancient local sport where competitors on platforms at the front of decorated boats attempt to knock each other into the harbour with long lances. It originated in Sète centuries ago and is genuinely one of the most unusual sporting traditions in France. Worth watching once if you're there.

The Feria de Béziers runs for five days in mid-August and is, by some measures, the greatest festival in Languedoc ... with fireworks, street entertainment, and a daily corrida. There's also an important wine festival running alongside it.

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It's larger than the Nîmes ferias in some ways and slightly more local in feel ... less internationally known, more deeply embedded in the town's identity. The combination of bullfighting culture, wine celebration, and the general Languedoc festival spirit reaches its peak intensity here in August.

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If you're in the region in mid-August and you want to understand the culture of the south of France at its most uninhibited, this is where to be.

The second Nîmes feria of the year ... smaller, more intimate, and by most local accounts more authentically itself than the Pentecôte. Founded in 1978, the Feria des Vendanges has a reputation for a more authentic, family-oriented atmosphere than the Pentecôte edition. It celebrates the grape harvest with corridas, courses camarguaises, abrivados, bodegas with music and dancing, and casitas on the Boulevard Victor Hugo serving paella and gardianne de taureau.

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September in Nîmes is extraordinary: warm but not punishing, the city returned to itself after the July-August peak, the vendange underway in the surrounding vineyards. This weekend is one of the best in the Languedoc calendar.

For the full Languedoc cultural experience: The Feria de Pentecôte in late May or the Feria des Vendanges in September. Both give you the city at its most alive and the surrounding region at its best.

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For music: The Festival de Nîmes in June-July is world-class. Book specific shows rather than a general pass and build a few days in the region around your concert night.

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For something off the usual radar: the Worldwide Festival in Sète at the end of June. Small enough to feel personal, large enough to be serious. The setting alone is worth it.

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For families or mixed groups: The Fiest'A Sète in late July has free opening events, and the Théâtre de la Mer setting is spectacular for all ages.

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If you'd like to build a trip around any of these events ... accommodation, restaurant reservations, day trips into the wine country and the garrigue before and after ... this is exactly the kind of thing we plan around. Tell us when you're planning to come, and we'll take it from there.

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Tell us about your trip and we'll start putting ideas together.