Gentse Feesten

What it is

A ten-day festival of music and theatre takes over the streets of Ghent, a city in Belgium, every July. Stages go up across the centre, and between them mimes, buskers and other street performers work the squares and corners. Most of the programme is free to walk up to and watch. The event has run in its present shape since 1969, and by now it draws around two million visits over its run, with the busiest nights alone bringing in more than a quarter of a million people. It is one of the larger cultural festivals in Europe.

How it began

The story starts in 1843, when Ghent held its first Gentse Feesten and roughly four hundred people came. For a long stretch the celebration came and went in intensity. The modern festival dates from the summer of 1969, when the singer Walter De Buck and his then wife Paula Monsart, working with people from Café Trefpunt, put it together again. At first there was a single stage close to Saint James' Church. From the late 1980s it spread outward until it covered the whole inner city, keeping something of the rebellious, anarchistic spirit of those early years.

Ten days in July

The dates follow July's own rhythm rather than a fixed number. The festival opens on the Friday that comes before the month's third Sunday and closes on the fourth Sunday, ten days in all. Those dates were not chosen with the national holiday in mind, but 21 July, Belgian National Day, always falls inside them. The final day, until recently always a Monday, carries a nickname in Dutch, de dag van de lege portemonnees, roughly the day of empty wallets. It pokes fun at how many visitors have by then spent the last of their money on the festivities. Ghent people think of that day as theirs, once the visitors have gone home.

Shows and side festivals

Performances have traditionally cost nothing to attend, and over the years smaller events have picked the same ten days for their own programmes. Trefpunt Festival grew from the group that restarted the Feesten, and now stages more than two hundred concerts with over a thousand musicians from many countries, in folk, jazz, soul, rock, funk and world styles. Gent Jazz Festival has run since 2002, first at the Castle of Counts and later at the Abbey of Byloke. Comedy Festival Gent began in 2007. There are also puppet and street theatre festivals, Polé Polé's world music on the quays, Boomtown's alternative bill, and Belgian Summer Sing's choirs. Ten Days Off, an electronic dance event, ended in 2014.

Today

Attendance is the measure people quote. Around two million visitors arrive each year, and on the biggest nights the number in the city passes 250,000. A 2005 ranking by localfestivities.com placed the Gentse Feesten third among Europe's city festivals. The event was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium, and returned in 2022. Even at this scale, those who know it say the festival has held on to the loose, rebellious mood of its early days, and the streets of the inner city remain its stage.

How Gentse Feesten is kept

Musicians, theatre makers, comedians and street performers fill the city centre for ten days, and audiences move between stages and squares without paying for most of it. It opens on a Friday in July and runs through the following week. Free concerts and theatrical pieces run alongside buskers, mimes and puppeteers. Smaller festivals inside the larger one hold their own concerts in cafés, halls and abbey grounds. On 21 July the national holiday is marked while the Feesten continue. The busiest nights draw enormous crowds. On the closing day, long treated as a Monday, Ghent residents claim the city back as visitors head home.

When and where

The ten days fall in July. The festival opens on the Friday ahead of the month's third Sunday and ends on the fourth Sunday, so 21 July, Belgian National Day, is always inside the run. Its starting date was not arranged around that holiday.

It belongs to Ghent, in Belgium, and takes over the inner city: squares, streets, cafés and courtyards all become venues. Over the decades the programme has spread from a single stage near Saint James' Church to the whole centre, and side events use halls such as the Abbey of Byloke and the Castle of Counts.

What Gentse Feesten means

For the people of Ghent the Feesten are a claim on their own city. Shows are free so that anyone can join, and the mood stays loose and slightly rebellious, a memory of how it restarted in 1969. The closing day, when money has run out and tourists have left, is the clearest expression of that: locals call it their own. Being there, in the streets, matters more than any single performance.

Questions people ask about Gentse Feesten

See also

Mardi GrasA festive day of parades and rich foods marking the final celebration before the Christian fasting season of Lent beginsSt. Martin's DayA November feast of lantern walks, bonfires, roast goose and new wineSingles' DayA day for people without a partner that grew into the world's biggest shopping eventFestivity of Saint BlaiseAn annual patron saint festival in Dubrovnik with processions, relics and doves

Good reading and sources

• Gentse Feesten on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.