Viking festivals in Europe

January 2027

• Viking & Norse Historic City Celebrations

  Scalloway Fire Festival

  Scalloway, Scotland

  Scalloway's Viking fire festival opens Shetland's fire-festival season on the second Friday of January: a Guizer Jarl and a squad of men, women and children in Norse dress lead the torchlit procession through the village to the boating club slipway at Port Arthur, where the galley is set alight and cast adrift on the sea before a fireworks display and a night of hall performances. The next edition is Friday 8 January 2027.

  8 Jan 2027

  Family
• Mike Pennington · CC BY-SA 2.0

  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.

  26 Jan 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.

  8–14 Feb 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 Jul–Aug 2027

  Family