Festivals and events in Pays de la Loire on 29 and 30 August 2026: the Rendez-vous de l'Erdre close a week of free jazz in Nantes, while Saffré, Beaupréau-en-Mauges and Noirmoutier keep their fêtes for these two days.
One hundred and twenty concerts, not a single ticket. Nantes hosts Les Rendez-vous de l'Erdre until Sunday 30 August, open-air jazz played on public space across the city. The Rendez-vous de l'Erdre close a week of free jazz on the water, while Saffré, Beaupréau-en-Mauges and Noirmoutier keep their fêtes for the weekend of 29-30 August 2026.
A week of jazz on the Erdre
Created in 1986 by the City of Nantes, Les Rendez-vous de l'Erdre ranks among the biggest jazz festivals in France. The 2026 edition takes over the city from 24 to 30 August, and 29-30/08 are its two final days.
Two figures sum it up. 120 concerts, all free, played outdoors on public space, with no hall and no box office. More than 150,000 spectators come every year, in late August, for a week devoted to the jazz of today.
Music is only half the story.
The festival doubles as a large boat gathering that takes over the river, and that pairing of stages and hulls sets it apart from every other event of the weekend in Pays de la Loire. Forty years after the first edition, entry still costs nothing, from the first concert to the hundred and twentieth.
Sunday 30 August closes the week.
The rest of the weekend, from Saffré to the salt marshes of Noirmoutier
Nine other events share the region's five departments this weekend.
Two fêtes run on Saturday and Sunday exactly. In Saffré, Saffré une Fête fills the château park with free concerts, brass bands, street parades and a local associations fair, as it has every late August since 2021. In Beaupréau-en-Mauges, the Foire de la Petite Angevine, founded in 1852 and nicknamed the "Féria made in Mauges", lines up horse races, an agricultural show, a trade fair and funfair rides at the La Prée racecourse.
Saturday alone is enough for two more. In Angers, the Vigne en Ville association has served the Vigne et Folk apéro-concert since 2013 in the last vineyard still farmed within the city walls, at the foot of Saint-Nicolas abbey, with two folk, rock or swing bands. In Connerré, in the Sarthe, Les Troubles Ville gives its last Saturday of August over to street theatre, circus and free concerts, a fixture the MJC Festival has run since 2009.
Vendée splits between salt and baroque. Salé Perché, a festival built on walking and music, leads groups of strollers through the Noirmoutier salt marshes on Saturday and Sunday, led by nature guides and stopped along the way by musicians playing among the salt pans. In Thiré, the Festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie gives its final day of baroque music on Saturday 29, with concerts, musical walks and candlelit meditations across twelve hectares of listed gardens, a co-production of Les Arts Florissants and the Vendée department since 2012.
Three city events round out the programme. In Nantes, Electropixel, run by the APO33 association since 2011, ends its three days of performances, installations and sound and visual works on Sunday 30. Le Voyage à Nantes, created in 2012 by Jean Blaise, unrolls its 16-kilometre green line of contemporary art until 6 September, turning the city into an open-air museum, and La Nuit des Chimères lights up the Gallo-Roman wall, Saint-Julien cathedral and the medieval facades of the Cité Plantagenêt in Le Mans every evening, a free trail launched in 2005 that runs until 20 September.
In Saffré as in Connerré, entry is free.