Tuesday 16 June 2009

Best festivals of Summer 2009

Summer is here again and that means long drinks in shady beer gardens, swimming in the lake outside town, ice cream on the square at dusk and an almost non-stop programme of festivals. Here’s a roundup of the best.

June
Lots of cities and towns have their annual festival on the first weekend of summer; this year from Friday 19th to Sunday 21st of June.
June 18-20 United Islands of Prague
June 19-21 Festival of the Five-Petalled Rose In Český Krumlov, Free entry for those in some approximation of historic costume
June 25-28 Stražnice folklore festival
June 26-27 Prachatice Golden Trail festival The only renaissance festival better than Český Krumlov's festival of the five-petalled rose

July
July is the month for big outdoor music festivals
July 2-5 Zahrada The country's best and biggest festival of Folk and World Music
July 3-4 Creamfields Central Europe
July 3-11 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
July 4-6 Rock for People with Gogol Bordello, Placebo and Underworld!
July 9-12 Colours of Ostrava This year with David Byrne, Mercury Rev and Morcheeba amongst many, many others.
July 16-19 Boskovice 2009 Music, film and theatre festival in Boskovice's Jewish quarter
July 17-19 Mighty sounds The festival for ska, punk, reggae and hip-hop
July 24-August 2 Uherské Hradiště Film School A film festival with theatre, workshops, seminars and other activities.
July 24-August 9 Prazdniny v Telči festival

August
August 8 Hradhouse Moravian open air electronic music festival
August 14-16 Chodsko Folk Festival, Domažlice is one of Western Bohemia's prettiest towns and the Chods were known for stubbornly preserving their traditions
August 20-22 Hip Hop Kemp
August 20-23 Trutnov Open air music festival-The Woodstock of East Bohemia
August 22 Okoř castle outdoor music festival
August 28-30 Trnkobrání Vízovice, Jelinek distillery
August 29-30 Hefaiston International blacksmiths’ festival in the grounds of a huge ruined castle

September
Most people are back at work, school and uni by September and the festivals start to come back into the cities and towns.
September 11-12 Znojmo Wine festival Harvest festival in the prettiest town of the country’s largest wine region
September 18-20 Mělník Wine festival Harvest festival in the prettiest town of the country’s smallest wine region
September 25 –October 16 Gaudeamus Igitur Student festival travelling to various university cites around the country

2 comments:

Brett Atkinson said...

excellent rundown Greg - all good reasons I've got to look at changing my schedule next time around - are you going to any of the gigs?

Captain Oddsocks said...

Cheers Brett,
Looks like it's going to be a thin year for festivals for me; I won't make it to the two I'd most like because of a wedding and a another event.
Might try to time my cycling trip with the Znojmo wine festival though. Stumbled into the Litomerice one lst year and there were lots of good events and entertainment even for non-drinkers...