Que faire

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, running 5–13 September — a century after the first fair in 1926. Expect busy hotels and a buzzing city during the fair's nine days.

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

Northern Greece's largest open-air festival and the city's street-culture blowout, staged at the industrial waterfront of the port since 2009. Multiple stages mix hip-hop, rock, reggae and electronic acts while the grounds fill with live graffiti murals, breakdance battles, parkour and skate competitions — the 2026 edition (the 14th) lands in mid-September. Check the current dates and line-up before planning.

Thessaloniki's flagship cultural festival, named after the city's patron saint Agios Dimitrios, fills October with concerts, theatre, dance and visual-arts events at venues across the city — organised by the municipality and running since 1966. The 2026 edition, its 61st, runs 1–24 October.

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.

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.

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.

One of southeastern Europe's biggest literary events, held at the TIF-HELEXPO fairgrounds each May — hundreds of publishers, author talks and translations with a different guest-country of honour each year, and much of the programme open to the public. The 2026 edition (the 22nd) ran 7–10 May; dates are set annually.

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