Festival de Marseille

Thirty years of open-air creation

The Festival de Marseille was founded in 1996 by Apolline Quintrand, with a first edition paying homage to the Mediterranean, held at the Vieille Charité. Since then, the festival has continued to grow to become one of the major events for contemporary creation in the South of France. In 2025, it celebrated its 30th edition with 36 artistic proposals spread across fifteen venues in Marseille.

A multidisciplinary and international festival

Dance, theater, performance, and music form the core of the Festival de Marseille's programming. Each edition brings together artists from around the world — choreographers, directors, musicians, performers — around original creations, French and European premieres, and hybrid forms that blur the boundaries between disciplines. The festival places particular emphasis on artists from the Mediterranean region and its diasporas.

Marseille as a stage

One of the unique aspects of the Festival de Marseille is its deep connection to the city itself. Performances take place in venues as diverse as the Théâtre National La Criée, the Friche la Belle de Mai, the Mucem, the Théâtre Silvain, public gardens, museums, and unexpected urban spaces. This itinerant approach transforms the city into a vast open-air stage and invites the people of Marseille to rediscover their territory through the lens of art.

A committed and accessible festival

Under the direction of Marie Didier since 2022, the Festival de Marseille affirms its commitment to accessibility and inclusion. Sign language interpretation, audio description services, FALC (Easy to Read and Understand) materials, and facilities for people with reduced mobility are an integral part of each edition. The festival also develops artistic education and cultural mediation activities throughout the year.