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Festival & Carnival Guides
The world's great festivals are on a lot of bucket lists and almost impossible to plan from the outside — the dates move, the tickets work differently everywhere, and no one tells you where to start. These guides fix that: what each one actually is, exactly when it happens, whether you need a ticket and where to buy it, and the first steps to take.
Rio Carnival
The world's biggest Carnival — stadium samba parades plus hundreds of free street parties.
Salvador Carnival
The world's biggest street party — music trucks and moving crowds, not a stadium.
Trinidad Carnival
The Caribbean's greatest Carnival — playing mas, soca and steelpan.
New Orleans Mardi Gras
America's Carnival — weeks of free parades ending on Fat Tuesday.
Notting Hill Carnival
Europe's biggest street festival — Caribbean culture in west London.
Venice Carnival
The elegant, masked carnival of costumes and grand balls.
Oktoberfest
The world's biggest beer festival.
La Tomatina
The giant tomato fight near Valencia.
San Fermín (Running of the Bulls)
The bull run and nine-day festival of San Fermín.
Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead)
Mexico's moving celebration of the departed — not a costume party.
Holi
India's festival of colours.
Songkran
Thai New Year — the world's biggest water fight.
Coachella
The desert music festival that sets the global calendar.
Glastonbury Festival
The UK's legendary music-and-everything festival — and its hardest ticket.
Tomorrowland
The world's biggest electronic-music festival.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The world's biggest arts festival — thousands of shows across one city.
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta
The world's biggest hot-air balloon gathering.
Semana Santa in Seville
Spain's most famous Holy Week — solemn, spectacular processions.
Burning Man
A temporary desert city of art, self-reliance and radical self-expression.
Carnival dates move with Easter, Holi and others follow a lunar calendar, and every festival sells tickets differently — some are free, some need a costume band booked months ahead, some cap entry entirely. Each guide sorts out exactly what to do and when.