Festivals in Occitanie on 22-23 August 2026: Castelnaudary ends five days of cassoulet feasting for more than 50,000 visitors, while Tarbes wraps up its Argentine tango week and Sète jousts on the Canal Royal.
Fifty thousand visitors. Castelnaudary, in the Aude, closes its cassoulet festival on Sunday, five days after opening on 19 August. Festivals and events in Occitanie on 22-23 August 2026 run from those Lauragais tables to the tango of Tarbes and the water jousting of Sète.
Five days of long tables on the Cours de la République
The Fête du Cassoulet de Castelnaudary takes over the Cours de la République from 19 to 23 August. The signature dish of the Lauragais is served at communal meals, alongside free concerts, brass bands and street shows.
More than 50,000 people turn up every year.
Cassoulet has its own brotherhood here, and the brotherhood started the festival: the dish is the subject, not a pretext for entertainment. Visitors eat at the same long tables, the music programme stays free, and the brass bands move between the seatings.
Three unlikely partners set it up in 2000: the Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet, the town of Castelnaudary and the CROC. Twenty-six years on, the principle has not changed, four to five days at the end of August in the town centre, and it has become the biggest summer event in the region.
Saturday 22/08/2026 opens the closing weekend of the run.
From the Jardin Massey to the screens of Gindou
Tarbes has been dancing since 14 August. Tarbes en Tango ends on Sunday in the Jardin Massey, gathering, as every summer since 1998, the leading Argentine masters and more than 18,000 visitors.
Higher up in the Pyrenees, the Grand Raid des Pyrénées sends close to 8,000 runners out of Vielle-Aure across eight timed races of 40 to 160 kilometres, through to Sunday. In the Ariège, the village of Oust hosts the ten or so concerts of Jazz & Gospel d'Oust, from swing to gospel, on the village square. On the Catalan coast, the Festa Major de Banyuls fills the Place Paul Reig with sardanes, coblas, beach tournaments and communal meals.
Two villages hold the other end of the weekend.
In Najac, one of the officially listed Plus Beaux Villages de France, the Fête de Saint-Barthélemy et de la Fouace opens three days on Saturday around a ring-shaped orange-blossom cake, which the local baker turns out in pieces of 25 to 45 kilos and close to two metres across. In Gindou, a Lot village of 300 people, the Rencontres Cinéma screen their final night on Saturday in an open-air cinema of 658 seats, running every August since 1985.
Montpellier opens the Festival Ekilibr on Saturday at the Domaine d'O, four days of contemporary circus where established companies share the bill with emerging ones.