This country is known to be the home of culture and traditions and once you visit it, your tour experience will be filled with colours and joy due to the amazing festivals that are celebrated over there, which has gained worldwide recognition. Another good thing to know about this country is that every month, the indigenous people celebrate their festivals, which is fully filled with their ancient traditions, in a splendid and grand way. It is rightly said, that a country’s tradition and culture is truly shown through the festivals that it’s from people that celebrate. Hungary is such a country which doesn’t have any fixed season to visit and enjoy its beautiful scenarios, because every month will bring some jollification to your life through the festives and events that are celebrated. From religious festivals to folk events you can enjoy all of it. So, if you ever made a plan to visit Hungary, these are the lists of some of the most world wide famous festivals that are celebrated over here, which you surely don’t want to miss it while enjoying your holidays. Let’s go through them.
Balaton Festival (3-7 July)
What’s the most magnificent thing about Europe is that it holds some of the most prominent music festivals where not only the native artists, but also talented international performers give their amazing performances. Most of the festivals of Hungary are celebrated annually where each year the number of visitors increases. Same goes with the Balaton festival, which is usually celebrated in the month of June and continues till July. The different genres of musics that can be found are pop, hip-hop, electronic, hard rock, EDM, and many more musics including the classic traditional ones. Participants of this festival are not only the local artists who are famous in their country but also involve some popular DJs and music artists who are admired all over the world like Axwell and The Chainsmokers, etc. One more thing to remember is to book the tickets well in advance so that you don’t miss out such an alluring festival.
Balaton festival is one of the most awaited celebration moment for the Hungarian people because apart from mesmerizing music, you will also find sunbathing and water sports, with many carnival rides to make sure that people shouldn’t be hungry while enjoying such powerful performances given by the accomplished musicians and artists. Therefore, there is also an arrangement of food stalls which serves some mouth licking traditional foods and continental delicacies as well. You will be amazed to know that Balaton festival is one of the world most biggest open air music festival where the performances are delivered on 9 different stages.
Coming back to this year, the festival will be celebrated from 3rd to 7th of July. It will be going to be held at the banks of Lake Balaton which is the largest lake in the whole Central Europe. It will consists of many tempting events like music and colorful stages, restaurants having continental delicious along with beautiful and soothing terraces, beaches and also cruise with chilling places and fun parties.
Hollókő Easter Festival (19-22 April)
When it comes to summer holidays, then you should go to Hungary during your summer time, so that you don’t miss out the most interesting festival of this country, that is the “Easter Festival in Hollókő”. It is considered to be one of the oldest festivals which is filled with tradition. People from all over the world gather together with the locals to celebrate this festive which includes numerous joyful activities like dancing, folk singing along with the exhibitions displaying local crafts, ancient painting, traditional arts, etc. Not only this, you will find Hungarian people enjoying this festival to the fullest as they dress up in their traditional attire and come out of their houses to enjoy some outdoor games together as well as some rich delicacies which will surely drive you crazy. Another important thing to know about this festival is that, it is mostly celebrated among the children. The venue for the celebration of this colourful and happy festival is Hollókő part of Hungary.
Some folk or ethnic people of northern Hungary make a small community and resides very simple life. This community is known as Páloc and the place where these people live is known as Páloc country, where Hollókő falls. This place is one of the world’s heritage sites where each year they celebrate Easter festival in a grand way. Therefore, trip to this place is must. The most famous, mouth watering Páloc cuisine is the traditional Hungarian Easter Ham. The process for making this delicious dish isn’t easy as the people conserve it for months before eating by smoking method. Not only this, some other local foods are homemade cheese, baked hams, homemade jams with honey. Well, it’s only not about the food, there would be also traditional musics performed by folk artists.
Apart from all these things, the main part of Easter festival is egg paintings. The village people arrange various programs and competitions for making the best artistic eggs as well as handicrafts, thus allowing the indigenous people to flaunt their talents in front of the visitors or tourists. According to the tradition of Locsolkodás, water is sprayed at passerby and whole people make this day as a memorable one by listening to folk musics and dancing to it’s beat. So people, if a festival is packed with such enjoyable things, then you should attend it at least once in your lifetime.
Busójárás (February-March)
Coming to another oldest and traditional festival of Hungary. This festival is annually celebrated in the month of February and the main reason for celebrating is the ending of the carnival season, which means welcoming the most beautiful season in Hungary, that is spring. The tradition related to this festival says that men should be in a scary looking attire, with their faces covered in masks. The most favourite thing of natives in this festival is to enjoy the local beverage, “Palinka”. It was initially celebrated in limited places like Šokci, but it gained recognition in the world very soon because of its fun and traditionally rich celebrations, for which it is now celebrated all over Hungary that had attracted a lot more visitors from different corners of the world. Not only this, there are much more events that happens in this festive like parades, folk musics, different forms of dancing and lastly masquerading.
Usually the festival begins from Thursday and it continues for almost six days, which includes carnival “Kisfarsang”, also known as “Little Farsang”, followed by “Farsang vasárnap”, also known to be Farsang Sunday as it falls on Sunday. It is considered to be the biggest celebration as compared to other 5 days. People bids farewell to the festival by celebrating ” Farsangtemetés”, which is also known as “Burial of Farsang”. The people celebrate this festival with so much of dedication and happy moments that made the festival achieve a place in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of the UNESCO in the year 2009.
The traditional masks that the men wear while celebrating this festival is known as “Busós”. Its history says that the Mohács, a small community in ancient era, were forced to leave their own place due to Turkish troops invasion. In order to get back their own land which was seized from them, they together on a stormy night prepared themselves for the battle by wearing scary masks and equipped themselves with sharp weapons. They made loud unwanted and scary noises which made the Turkish people believe that there is some demons making such noise, which became the reason that they gave up. This is why this festival is celebrated wearing masks and and saying goodbye to the wind season. So people don’t just sit around at home, come visit Hungary, and let yourself be a part of these amazing festivals.
Don´t hesitate and jump right into your next adventure: Hungary has much more to offer than great festivals. To find the best travel routes for Hungary, go and visit the German website Backpackertrail.
Lists of other major festivals
- January-
- January 1:- New Year’s Day
- February-
- Busójárás
- March-
- March 15:- National Day
- April-
- 5-22 April:- Budapest Spring Festival
- 19-22 April:- Easter weekend
- May-
- 20-26 May:- Romantic Reform Era
- June-
- Early June:- Danube Carnival (for 2 weeks)
- 8 June- 30 August:- Budapest Summer Festival
- June (late)- August (late):- Summer on the Chain Bridge
- Tihany Lavender Festival
- July-
- July (1 week):- Early Music Days
- 3 July- 7 July:- Balaton Sound
- Early July:- Bull’s Blood Festival
- 29 July- 4 August:- Ozora Festival
- Badacsony Wine Weeks
- August-
- June- August (mid):- Outdoor Festival
- 7 August- 13 August:- Sziget Festival
- 31 August- 7 September:- Jewish Cultural Festival
- 12-22 August:- Summerfest International Folklore Festival
- 17-20 August:- Budapest Festival of Folk Arts
- September-
- Romantic Reform Era
- October-
- 4 October- 20 October:- Café Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival
- November-
- 1 November:- All Saints’ Day/Remembrance Day
- December-
- 24-25 December: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
