The Biggest Annual Spring Festival of Athens Returns
May we have a month of your time? We promise to make every day count.
We're more than excited to announce the return of Athens City Festival for its sophomore year! The second edition of the biggest annual spring festival of Athens will take place throughout the whole of May (yes, you got that right, a 31-day-long festival) with events taking place all around the city. Last year's highly successful debut saw more than 80,000 visitors taking pleasure in the city's offerings at more than 50 locations. This year Athens City Festival is, once again, rich in volume and includes more than 200 events with free entrance* catering to all tastes, types and ages, making May the ideal season to pay a visit to our side of the Mediterranean.
The Athens City Festival is an initiative by This is Athens, the Official Visitors Guide to the City of Athens. Consisting of four main pillars—Exhibitions, Gastro-Culture, Entertainment, and Outdoor Athens—the festival aims to showcase both the essential and the understated traits of our unconventional city, offering visitors a first-hand experience of the Athens way of living life. The events take place at major landmarks, museums, parks and squares, as well as low-key, off-the-beaten-track neighbourhoods that are often overlooked by visitors, but which pack a fascinating mix of traditional and current Athens.
This May you can find yourself dancing atop Lycabettus Hill to the picks of some of the world's hottest DJs and with a bird's-eye view of Athens, or attending a hush-hush concert at the 2,500-year-old Ancient Agora. Rub shoulders with Athenians at unassuming neighbourhood squares for a Sunday picnic catered to by traditional local establishments, or check into a world-class museum for a memorable wine-pairing dinner of contemporary Greek cuisine.
The festival programme is the result of an open call to local companies, business associations, collective bodies and cultural institutions; inviting them to bring forward new or existing experiences and to encourage residents and visitors to explore the lesser seen pockets of Athens.
Head over to the festival's official website for all the info you might need on hours, dates, tickets and locations. Got any questions? E-mail us here, we'll be happy to answer. Let the festival celebrations begin!
* Most events are free entrance and require no tickets, to the exception of some concerts that have a priced ticket, and some events that are free entrance but require pre-registration or are invitation-only. All related information to each of the festival's events can be found on the festival's website, under the page for each event.