Events in North Rhine-Westphalia this weekend, October 3-4, 2026: Lichtenau celebrates its 700th anniversary, alongside a marathon in Cologne, a light festival in Essen and a shooting-club anniversary in Warstein.
The Lichtenauer Schützenhalle stands at the edge of the Eggegebirge, in the Paderborn district. There, the town of Lichtenau marks its 700th anniversary on October 3 and 4, 2026.
700 years of Lichtenau
The first written mention of Lichtenau dates back to 1326, under the name “Lechtenowe”. Exactly 700 years on, the town at the eastern edge of the Paderborn district, on the border with Hesse, marks the milestone with a festival weekend on October 3 and 4, 2026, at the Lichtenauer Schützenhalle.
The motto reads “Tradition meets the future”. Saturday, October 3, also falls on German Unity Day. Stage acts, club presentations and a market of local vendors share the hall's programme. Activities for families round out the schedule. Drivers reach the town via the A33 towards Brilon, exit Lichtenau. Bus 472 links Paderborn station to the town in about 40 minutes. A few kilometres away stands Kloster Dalheim, now the LWL State Museum for Monastic Culture.
The main festival forms the high point of a full anniversary year. It opened in June with a children's festival, continued in July with a pub quiz across several Lichtenau venues, and added an open-air cinema in September.
Marathon, hardstyle and light art
More than 14,000 runners set off on Sunday at 10:30am from Ottoplatz in Cologne-Deutz for the Generali Cologne Marathon, a course passing the cathedral, the Kranhäuser towers in Rheinauhafen and the districts of Rodenkirchen, Sülz, Lindenthal, Ehrenfeld and Nippes before finishing on Hohe Straße near Komödienstraße. In Münster, the Sparkassen Münsterland Giro marks its 20th edition on Saturday. For the first time, the professional race starts in Borken to mark that town's own 800th anniversary, while around 7,500 amateur cyclists ride the LeezenCup distances of 65, 95 and 125 kilometres to the finish on the Prinzipalmarkt.
At the Westfalenhallen in Dortmund, the SYNDICATE Festival brings over 40 hardstyle, hardcore and uptempo acts across four floors on Saturday night. Up to 20,000 guests dance under the motto “Ambassadors in harder Styles” from 6pm to 4am. Essen, meanwhile, turns its city centre into a stage for light art for ten days. Organised by Essen Marketing GmbH, the Essen Light Festival projects light installations, video mapping and interactive shows onto landmark buildings along Kettwiger Straße, Burgplatz and beyond.
Craft beer and street food take over the Wanheimerort workshop yard for the 2nd Duisburg Beer Festival. After a spring edition in April, the Rheingold brewery hosts its autumn edition from October 2 to 4 with craft breweries and street-food stalls. Between Bonn, Bergisch Gladbach, Bad Honnef, Remagen, Troisdorf and Wachtberg, the Käpt'n Book reading festival continues its run, Germany's largest reading festival for children and teenagers. Founded in Bonn in 2003, it has grown into a regional festival spanning over 100 venues across more than 25 partner municipalities, now in its 24th edition.
In Düsseldorf-Urdenbach, the Allgemeiner Bürgerverein Urdenbach 1898 e.V. has organised one of North Rhine-Westphalia's largest and most established harvest festivals since the 1950s. Its highlight is the parade on Sunday, October 4, at 2pm: around 40 groups with up to 2,000 participants march through the district, and up to 40,000 spectators line the route. The festival runs from Friday, October 2, to Monday, October 5, and closes with the traditional “Blotschenball” Monday. In the Sauerland, the Warstein civic archers' society, founded in 1601, marks its 425th anniversary on October 2 and 3, with a floodlit shooting contest as the highlight of its anniversary programme.
Entry to Lichtenau's anniversary weekend is free.