Medieval Booker

Viking festivals in Europe

3 viking festivals across Europe with dates for 2026–2027, where they happen and what makes each one worth the trip.

Type: Viking & Norse Remove category filter Clear filters

3 festivals, upcoming first

January 2027

Up Helly Aa (Lerwick) in Lerwick Balou46 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Featured
Music, Feasts & Theatre Viking & Norse +1

Up Helly Aa (Lerwick)

Lerwick, Scotland

Up Helly Aa is Lerwick's Viking-themed fire festival, held on the last Tuesday of January: about a thousand torch-bearing guizers led by the Guizer Jarl's squad in Norse dress march through the town and burn a full-size replica longship, then tour a dozen halls performing skits until morning. It grew out of 19th-century tar-barrelling, with the first torch procession in 1881 and the first galley burning in 1889; the next edition is Tuesday 26 January 2027.

2027
Family

February 2027

Featured
Reenactment & Battles Living History & Museums +1

JORVIK Viking Festival

York, England

The JORVIK Viking Festival takes over York for a week every February half-term with a Viking encampment and traders' market in the city centre, a march of hundreds of warriors, talks, crafts, a best-beard contest and a ticketed finale battle with pyrotechnics. Founded in 1985 by the team behind the JORVIK Viking Centre, it is the largest Viking festival in Europe and draws around 40,000 people.

Expected 2027
Family

July 2027

Featured
Reenactment & Battles Living History & Museums +1

Festival of Slavs and Vikings, Wolin

Wolin, Poland

The Festival of Slavs and Vikings on Ostrów island at Wolin is one of Europe's largest early-medieval gatherings, with around 2,000 re-enactors from some 30 countries camping in a reconstructed 9th–11th-century port settlement. Four days of crafts, battles with hundreds of warriors, boat regattas, rituals and music recall the town that medieval chroniclers knew as Jomsborg or Vineta.

Expected 2027
Family

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