The Festas de Lisboa are back to adorn the city
The Festas de Lisboa are back. After two highly restricted years, the city will be dolling itself up again, with street festivities, concerts, the Marchas Populares (parades) and much more.
In this programme, you’ll discover various free cultural events and activities taking place in Lisbon over a period of more than a month. We’re also revealing a new design, once again focussing on the symbol of the sardine; every year we receive thousands of creative sardine illustrations from all over the world.
As Lisbon has long been the point of arrival and departure for so many, our Opening Concert will be performed by Tito Paris and guest musicians. This is a time of war in Europe, but also of reunions following the forced distancing of the pandemic. Therefore, this concert is entitled "What Unites Us" and is an invitation to remember what is important. In these troubled times, this festival can be a way of bringing us together.
They say you should start them young, so this year the Marchas Populares will be gaining reinforcements in the shape of the Lisbon Schools’ Children Parade, which will be marching down the Avenida da Liberdade for the first time. In a sense, veterans of the parade will be passing on the baton to those just starting out in what is now a city ritual.
Lisbon’s Casas Regionais will also be involved in this year’s Festas. They’ll be making their way to Quinta das Conchas for two days of fun, entertainment and celebration of the country’s regional cultures.
We’ll be ending by returning to the beginning, celebrating one hundred years of Parque Mayer. It was from there that the Marchas Populares and many other initiatives, which today are traditions, were born. But we won’t be ending with a goodbye, but rather with a see you soon, to the sound of “Cheira a Lisboa”, a concert which will recreate some of the greatest musical hits from the most celebrated Parque Mayer shows.
See you soon!