Events and festivals in Bavaria on September 5 and 6, 2026 run from Nuremberg's autumn folk festival, drawing 1.6 million visitors, to the imperial city days in Rothenburg and the Gillamoos fair in Abensberg.
Sixteen tents' worth of noise, a century of history next door.
On the Volksfestplatz by the Dutzendteich lake in Nuremberg, beer tents and rides have run since August 28 and continue to September 13, 2026. On September 5, 2026, and the day after, around 1.6 million visitors come through the grounds of the city's second-largest Wiesn.
Nuremberg's Franconian Wiesn by the Dutzendteich
The Nuremberg autumn folk festival ranks among the largest folk festivals in Bavaria. It is the city's second big Wiesn, right after the spring festival earlier in the year.
The grounds sit between Bayernstraße and the former Nazi party rally grounds, eighteen hectares in total. Beer tents, rides and brewery stalls share the space and turn it, as every late summer, into a Franconian Wiesn. Market stands, food stalls and showmen's booths crowd the lanes between the tents, music arriving from several directions at once.
The 2026 edition has run since August 28 and continues through September 13, seventeen days altogether. Over the weekend of September 5 and 6, 2026, the festival runs at full swing, brass bands under canvas, music drifting between the stalls.
Around 1.6 million visitors come through the grounds during that stretch, families in the afternoon, packed tents and brass music running into the evening.
Between imperial cities and rainbow colours
Not far away, in Abensberg, the Gillamoos fair has run since September 3, one of Bavaria's oldest folk festivals, tracing back to 1313, with beer tents, a funfair and rides for around 300,000 visitors over five days. Monday traditionally belongs to the Political Gillamoos, the country's biggest political gathering of its kind. In Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the Imperial City Days bring some 27 historical groups into the medieval old town, marking 750 years since the city gained imperial status, with an evening torchlight procession from the Doppelbrücke to the market square.
In Dinkelsbühl, residents and historical groups re-enact the life of a former imperial city at the Historic Town Festival, with camp life, staged combat and a farmers' market. Apothecaries, bathhouse keepers, brewers, soap makers, cobblers and pickpockets show off their old trades along the way. Bayreuth brings its 1748 UNESCO-listed margravial opera house back to baroque life for Bayreuth Baroque, the youngest of the city's three festivals alongside the Wagner festival and the piano festival, led by countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic. In Munich, the Isarinselfest turns Steinsdorfstraße into a kilometre-long open-air stage strip, four stages with a children's programme, a riverside spot by the Vater-Rhein fountain and a drone show on Saturday night.
On the B470 between Walberla and Neideck, the Fränkische Schweiz Marathon reaches its 25th edition, one of the most scenic marathon events in Germany, with a full marathon, half marathon, 10km run, relay marathon, run & bike over 21.1 kilometres and a handbike marathon on a closed road. In Ingolstadt, organised by Queer Ingolstadt e.V., the Christopher Street Day parade moves in rainbow colours from Paradeplatz past the town hall to the Schloßlände, with live music, banners, political speeches and an evening programme at KAP94 with drag shows and DJ sets.