Avignon Festival

For three weeks in July, Avignon becomes a stage. Companies hand out flyers on every street, and the palace of the popes hosts theatre in its main courtyard, the Cour d'honneur.

The festival was created in 1947 by Jean Vilar, and the first edition was his staging of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. He directed it until his death in 1971, and the festival has kept his aim of theatre for a wide audience. The official programme, known as the In, has about 40 shows and roughly 400 performances a year, with over 130,000 spectators. Besides the palace courtyard it uses cloisters and the courtyards of secondary schools, which are some of the best settings in the city.

Then there is the Off. It began in 1966 as an unofficial fringe and now fills the city with companies performing wherever they can find a room. It has its own programme and its own tickets, separate from the In. The festival was cancelled in 2003 over strikes and in 2020 because of the pandemic. The 2026 edition was the 80th.

How to go: Avignon has a train station by the walled centre, and our Avignon guide covers the city. Rooms are the real problem. Rooms are scarce in July and the best sell out months ahead, so look for a place in a nearby town with a train. The programme is usually presented in April, and the dates of the 2027 festival, planned for July, have not been announced.