Events and festivals in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes on 29-30 August 2026: the Hadra Trance Festival draws close to 10,000 people to Vieure, Billom goes medieval for the Charivari and the Festival Berlioz closes out its season.
Four stages, and not a minute of silence. By the lake at Vieure, in the Allier, the music runs day and night until Sunday 30 August. The Hadra Trance Festival draws close to 10,000 people, Billom goes medieval for the Charivari and the Festival Berlioz closes out its season over the weekend of 29-30/08.
72 hours of non-stop music by the lake at Vieure
Created in 2005 by the Hadra association, the Hadra Trance Festival is the biggest psychedelic trance festival in France and one of the largest in Europe. Since 2016 it has set up its stages on the shores of the lake at Vieure, in the Allier.
The whole idea fits in one number. From Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 August the music never stops: 72 full hours, spread across four stages playing day and night, with no other interlude than one artist handing over to the next.
Close to 10,000 festival-goers spend those four days at the water's edge, which makes the Allier gathering one of the summer's biggest electronic get-togethers. The event has been run by an association since it began, an exception among festivals of this size.
Sunday 30 August closes the 2026 edition, twenty-one years after the first.
Medieval Billom, a donkey fair and a comedy send-off
Billom's medieval quarter changes era for the weekend. The Charivari, the first medieval fantasy festival in Auvergne, lines up free fire shows, juggling, storytelling, medieval dances and Celtic folk concerts in the old streets; the Chariva'livre, a fantasy book fair created in 2017 alongside it, brings authors and readers together for talks and signings.
At Braize, in the Allier, the Foire aux Ânes expects close to 10,000 visitors on Sunday for the leading fair devoted to the Bourbonnais donkey, a heritage breed from the northern Massif Central, with a prize fair and harness competitions. At Vals-près-le-Puy, the Festi'Vals des Chibottes celebrates the dry-stone huts built by the shepherds and winegrowers of the Velay, from Friday to Sunday, with a torchlight procession, stone soup and a village dance on the listed Crouzas site.
Saturday night, the comedy wraps up.
The Festival National des Humoristes, created in 1989 between Tournon-sur-Rhône and Tain-l'Hermitage, gives its final shows on Saturday 29 August 2026, after more than a week of performances and a free open-air Fest'Off that serves as a springboard for new talent.
Street arts and street art both get their share of what's on. The Fêtobourg in Mably, free and family-minded since 1997, gathers around 7,000 spectators over three days in the town-hall park; at Mariac, in the Ardèche, the Street Art Festival Murs 2 Couleurs hands 1,000 m² of facades to more than twenty graffiti artists on the theme of sustainable development, with concerts, DJ sets and a craft market alongside.