On September 5 and 6, 2026, events and festivals in Thuringia spread across nine towns: Arnstadt holds its town festival with around 45,000 visitors, Rudolstadt opens its 1,250-year jubilee week.
Nine towns, one weekend.
On the market square in Arnstadt, the festival opens already on Friday and reaches its peak over the weekend. On 5–6 September 2026, events and festivals in Thuringia spread across nine towns, from the market square in Arnstadt to the jubilee week in Rudolstadt.
The largest town festival in the Ilm district
In Arnstadt, Thuringia's oldest town, the old town turns into a packed festival ground from September 4 to 6. The Arnstadt town festival counts around 45,000 visitors, ranking as the largest folk festival in the Ilm district and one of the largest town festivals in Thuringia.
Eight stages and ten activity areas fill the market square and the surrounding streets. Bands, DJs, performance troupes and other acts take turns there across the three days, from the main stages down to the smaller corners of the old town.
More than 200 artists perform in total. Alongside them, around 250 traders, showmen and food stalls turn the square and the lanes around it into one continuous festival mile.
Friday opens the three days. Saturday and Sunday carry the festival through to its close, with the busiest program falling on those two days. Afterwards, the square returns to its usual quiet self, calm again like any other weekend in the Ilm district.
The festival mile runs through the historic old town, from the market square into the smaller lanes around it. Anyone visiting on September 5, 2026 finds one of the busiest dates on the entire district's festival calendar.
Around 45,000 visitors turn up each year, more than at most other town festivals in Thuringia. Arnstadt therefore carries one of the region's most crowded dates this weekend.
The rest of the weekend across Thuringia
Rudolstadt opens its jubilee week on Sunday, marking 1,250 years of town history and 700 years of town rights, with a theatre celebration and civic ceremony on the market square: the Rudolstadt anniversary celebration week. In Mühlhausen, the ten-day Mühlhausen town fair closes at the same time, one of the largest fun fairs in Germany, around the Blobach square of the medieval imperial town.
In Weimar, around 60 potters present faience, Bürgel stoneware and raku ceramics on the market square at the Weimar pottery market, with shops open on Sunday. At the steam locomotive works in Meiningen, the Meiningen steam locomotive days have shown historic engineering since 1995, at the only Deutsche Bahn works that still overhauls steam engines.
At Hofwiesenpark in Gera, the GEht RAus! Open Air turns into ten hours of techno on September 5, with Chris Liebing, PAN-POT and Anja Schneider for its fourth edition. At Ponitz Renaissance castle, the Ponitz light festival is set to bathe the courtyard, arcades and café in light art, for what would be its twelfth edition.
In the Thuringian Forest near Schmiedefeld, six distances make up the RENNSTEIGRIDE, from the super marathon down to the JuniorRIDE for the youngest riders, on looped courses for every level. In Großheringen, the Thuringian vineyard festival turns the Dachsberg into a small wine village with Saale-Unstrut wines, guided vineyard walks and raft trips on the Saale.