Festivals and events in Brittany on 22-23 August 2026: the Saint-Loup wraps up four days of Breton dancing in Guingamp, while Vitré, Groix and Guémené-sur-Scorff hold their own weekend gatherings.
Costumes, brass bands and a jury. Guingamp hosts the national Breton dance championship of the Kendalc'h confederation until Sunday 23 August. The Saint-Loup wraps up its four days of dancing over 22-23/08, while Vitré, Groix and Guémené-sur-Scorff hold their own weekend gatherings.
Breton dance on the Place du Champ au Roy
On the Place du Champ au Roy in Guingamp, the Festival de la Saint-Loup takes over the town centre from 19 to 23 August. It is the largest Breton dance festival in France, and the only event of this Brittany weekend built around a competition rather than a line-up.
The first one took place in 1957.
The festival hosts the national Breton dance championship run by the Kendalc'h confederation. Celtic circles and bagadoù step out in front of a jury, and thousands of dancers in traditional costume parade through the streets across four days. Dance here is judged as much as performed, which sets the Saint-Loup apart from the summer fest-noz, where nobody keeps score.
A devoted crowd follows every round.
Sunday 23 August closes the four days of parades and contests, and with them the championship. Guingamp, a sub-prefecture of the Côtes-d'Armor, has held the event every August for close to seventy years.
Brass in Vitré, jazz in Pont-l'Abbé
At Bréal-sous-Montfort, on the edge of the Brocéliande forest, the Festival du Roi Arthur lines up three days of concerts, national headliners and more than 20,000 festival-goers. Vitré spreads Les Fanfarfelues across three stages around its medieval castle, from funk to hip-hop by way of jazz and world music, brass to the front. On the Côte d'Émeraude, the Beryl Festival plays its final night on Saturday at the Jardin de la Roche Rouge in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, with emerging acts and an environmental stance held since 2018.
Jazz, for its part, costs nothing.
Pont-l'Abbé, capital of the Pays Bigouden, runs the Snap Jazz Festival until Sunday: seven free concerts at Square Excelsior and Bois Saint-Laurent, taking in gypsy jazz, New Orleans, Chicago blues, afrobeat and Balkan music, before the closing jam session.
Two free events play the mixed bill. In the Gouédic valley in Saint-Brieuc, Le Mille runs concerts, DJ sets, fire shows, open-air cinema, a makers' market and nature workshops until 23 August. At Malguénac, in inland Brittany, the Festival Arts des Villes Arts des Champs wraps up four days of concerts and shows, an international programme carried since 1998 by the Polyculture association.
Off Lorient, Groix gives five days to island cinema. The Festival International du Film Insulaire screens documentaries, fiction and short films about islands and the people who live on them at Port-Lay, until Sunday 23. Created in 2001, it is the only festival in the world devoted entirely to island cultures.