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Where are the biggest music festivals on Earth?
What are the most popular festivals in the world?
What is the biggest music festival in Europe?
What is the biggest beer festival in the world?
Mar 28, 2024 · June 20-July 6, 2024. Milwaukee, WI. Officially billed in the Guinness Book of World Records as The World's Largest Music Festival, this lakeside festival lasts for a staggering three-weekend stretch and entertains nearly a million fans.
- Mawazine. Aggregate Attendance: 2,500,000. Location: Rabat. First Year Held: 2001. Big Performer: Ennio Morricone. Mawazine is the largest music festival in the world by aggregate attendance.
- Donauinselfest. Aggregate Attendance: 2,400,000. Location: Vienna. First Year Held: 1984. Big Performer: Master Blaster. Donauinselfest, which is German for “Danube Island Festival,” is the largest free open-air festival in Europe, offering guests the chance to experience live performances of all sorts of musical genres at no initial cost.
- Summerfest. Aggregate Attendance: 770,000. Location: Milwaukee. First Year Held: 1968. Big Performer: Jennifer Lopez. Hosted at Henry Maier Festival Park, or the “Summerfest Grounds” every summer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this massive music festival usually takes up 11 days and comprises hundreds of acts.
- Pol’and’Rock. Aggregate Attendance: 750,000. Location: Kostrzyn nad Odra. First Year Held: 1995. Big Performer: Ziggy Marley. Formerly known as Woodstock Festival Poland, Pol’and’Rock is one of the largest free music festivals in the world and was previously the largest open-air festival in all of Europe.
- Donauinselfest. Vienna, Austria. 1984. 3,000,000. Donauinsel. This is not necessarily one of the most popular worldwide, but it definitely is one of the largest and most crowded celebrations in the world, so if we are thinking about the “biggest,” look no further than Donauinselfest.
- Montreal International Jazz Festival. Montreal, Canada. 1980. 2,000,000. Montreal. The world’s largest Jazz festival, closing the streets of Montreal for ten days in an annual tradition that hosts 3,000 artists over its duration.
- Pol’and’Rock. Czaplinek, Poland. 1993. 1,000,000. Czaplinek. Mud baths in the open air, along with costume and equality parades, this was a festival village with massive food stalls, and free to attend.
- Rock In Rio. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1985. 700,000. City of Rock, Barra da Tijuca. Brazil has been hosting the biggest rock bands in the world since 1985 in Rio de Janeiro, and for many years, Roberto Medina has ensured that this festival kept going even in venues across the world, such as Lisbon since 2004, Madrid in 2008, 2010, and 2012, and Las Vegas in 2015.
- Overview
- When was the first Oktoberfest?
- How did Oktoberfest evolve?
- Why is Oktoberfest in September?
- How is Oktoberfest celebrated now?
Beer. Brats. Lederhosen. Every September, Munich hosts the largest folk festival in the world. Here’s how the tradition got started.
A crowd drinks beer in a large pavilion in Munich, Germany, to celebrate Oktoberfest. For more than 200 years, this annual festival has been a quintessential German tradition—and its roots date back to the early days of the Kingdom of Bavaria.
Every year, millions of revelers descend on a tent-filled meadow in Munich to celebrate the love of long-ago Bavarian royals at a celebration known as Oktoberfest.
Just kidding: These days people flock to Munich's Oktoberfest with the hope of consuming liters upon liters of beer, indulging in German delicacies from bratwurst sausages to giant pretzels, and showing off their finest dirndls, traditional bodices for women, and lederhosen, traditional breeches for men.
The annual event held in Germany is the largest folk festival in the world—and also the largest beer festival, with revelers consuming approximately six million liters of ale each year. Inside its tents, you can fill your stein with lager to your heart’s content, dance to German folk music, and even go on carnival rides.
(A guide to Munich, Germany's boisterous beer capital.)
The original Oktoberfest was, in fact, held in October—on October 17, 1810, to be exact, in honor of the nuptials a few days earlier of Bavarian crown prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. Legend has it that a member of the national guard came up with the idea of a festival for the common people, but scholars have cast doubt on those claims.
(Life for this other Bavarian princess was no fairy tale.)
What we do know is that Bavaria at the time was a brand new kingdom: After years as an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, the German state had recently been elevated as a result of King Maximilian I’s alliance with Napoleon. In addition to celebrating his son’s marriage, the festival held in its capital city was thus also an opportunity to foster and showcase a newfound sense of national pride.
The original Oktoberfest was a week of games that centered on a horse race, a particularly beloved tradition in Munich back then. Although most of the trappings of the modern Oktoberfest were not yet part of the event—beer concessions began in 1815—it was considered a rousing success. The meadow where it was held (and is still held today) has since been named "Theresienwiese" in honor of the bride.
Bavarians clamored for more. But without a royal wedding to foot the bill, someone else had to take over the event planning. The following year, the Bavarian Agricultural Association stepped in—a local power player at a time when agriculture ruled in Bavaria. In addition to races, they held cattle markets and displays of prize-winning animals akin to a modern state fair.
The city of Munich took over after 1819, however, and in the decades after that the modern Oktoberfest began to take shape with the addition of merry-go-rounds, ferris wheels, and chicken roasteries. While the official Oktoberfest is still held on the same field in Munich, there are now Oktoberfest events held throughout the country as a celebration of German heritage.
(Can't get to Munich? Here are our top 10 other Oktoberfests.)
And how about the beer? It quickly became a quintessential part of the festivities. In 1835, historian Jeffrey Gaab writes that revelers consumed 250,000 liters of beer, and in 1895 breweries began to build temporary beer halls to accommodate visitors.
So why is Oktoberfest celebrated in September today? The answer is simple: weather.
As early as 1828, festivalgoers had begun to complain about Bavaria’s rainy October weather, writes Moses Wolff in his Oktoberfest guide Meet Me in Munich. They pushed to move the celebration to a more temperate time of year—mostly unsuccessfully, as the city didn’t want to disrupt harvest season.
Through the years, Oktoberfest has only been canceled 26 times, including for the Napoleonic wars in 1813, various cholera epidemics, both world wars, and most recently the COVID pandemic.
Today’s Oktoberfest looks quite a bit different from the early 19th century festivities. For one, horse races are no longer part of the event, except in anniversary years to honor its origins. The amount of beer consumed at Oktoberfest has also grown considerably alongside its attendance figures—from 1.5 million liters of beer in 1950 to four million liters in 1970 and then six million liters from the 1990s onward.
- Amy Mckeever
The United States plays host to some of the world's most headline-grabbing festivals, but the biggest event, welcoming 3million revelers each year, takes place in Europe. (Coachella doesn't even crack the top 10.) We've crunched the numbers to determine the biggest music festivals on Earth.
The Oktoberfest is known as the largest Volksfest (folk festival) in the world. In 1999 there were six and a half million visitors to the 42-hectare Theresienwiese; 72% of visitors are from Bavaria.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe Festival or the Fringe) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2018 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 different shows in 322 venues.
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