Things to Do

Greece's biggest trade exhibition takes over the city's fairgrounds each September with business and tech pavilions, a country of honour (Japan in 2026), and a packed public programme of talks and concerts. The 2026 edition is the 90th — a century after the first fair in 1926. Expect busy hotels and a buzzing city during the fair's nine days.

Thessaloniki's flagship cultural festival, named after the city's patron saint Agios Dimitrios, fills the autumn with concerts, theatre, dance and visual-arts events at venues across the city — a tradition running since 1966.

Thessaloniki hosts Greece's grand military parade on Ohi Day, the national holiday marking the country's 1940 refusal of Italy's wartime ultimatum. Tanks, marching units and a flypast process along the seafront before huge crowds and the nation's leadership. It caps a festive late-October week that opens with the city's patron-saint day, Agios Dimitrios, on 26 October — so expect closed central streets, packed cafés and a flag-draped, celebratory mood around the parade.

One of southeast Europe's most important film festivals, screening world cinema and the best of new Greek film across the historic waterfront cinemas and the port warehouses for eleven days each November.

Apokries, the pre-Lenten carnival, fills the three weeks before Lent with costumes, parties and parades; Thessaloniki's bars and squares get lively, while nearby villages stage some of Greece's most striking traditional carnivals — the bell-clad koudounforoi of Sohos and the masked Boules of Naoussa. It closes on Clean Monday (Kathara Deftera, 15 March in 2027), a public holiday when families head outdoors to fly kites and eat lenten lagana flatbread, marking the start of Orthodox Lent.

The film festival's spring sibling, devoted to documentary: hundreds of films, world premieres and industry events each March, with screenings open to the public across the city centre.

The biggest event in the Greek calendar, and a movable feast — Orthodox Easter falls on 2 May in 2027. Holy Week brings candlelit Good Friday Epitaphios processions through the streets and a midnight Resurrection service on Holy Saturday lit by fireworks and thousands of candles, followed by a festive Easter Sunday of lamb on the spit. Plan around it: many shops, sights and restaurants close or run reduced hours over the long weekend as locals head to their villages, and the city is quiet on Easter Sunday before the celebratory mood returns.

Northern Greece's biggest LGBTQ+ celebration, held each June since 2012. A week of talks, films and parties builds to a colourful parade through the city centre and a free concert on the waterfront, drawing tens of thousands. It lands squarely in the prime early-summer travel window and is one of the liveliest weekends of the year in Thessaloniki.

The city's benchmark electronic-music festival since 2005, spreading club nights, live acts and daytime talks across venues around Thessaloniki each September.

Aristotelous Square lights its giant tree and a Christmas market, the Asterokosmos park opens at the fairgrounds, and the square hosts a New Year's Eve concert and fireworks — the festive mood runs through to Epiphany on 6 January.