On 22-23 August 2026, several Centre-Val de Loire festivals play their final night: twenty-four pianists finish the first Chopin competition at Nohant, and a dozen lit boats drift down the Creuse at Lurais.
Sunday, at Nohant-Vic.
George Sand's estate hosts the closing day of an international piano competition that opened on 15 August. On 22-23 August 2026, several Centre-Val de Loire festivals play their final night, from Chartres to Mehun-sur-Yèvre, while others open for this weekend only.
Twenty-four pianists at the George Sand estate
The Concours International de Piano Chopin Pleyel closes its very first edition on Sunday 23 August, nine days after it opened, at the George Sand estate in Nohant-Vic, in the Indre.
Twenty-four pianists selected worldwide take the keyboard in turn.
Three organisations built the competition together: the Centre des monuments nationaux, the Nohant Festival Chopin and Pianos Pleyel. A high-level classical piano competition usually runs inside a conservatoire or a concert hall; this one picked a writer's house on Place Sainte-Anne, in a village of the Indre.
A first edition starts with no audience of its own. This one leans on three established names, the place, the composer and the piano maker, and on entrants recruited across the world.
Nothing else in Centre-Val de Loire plays at that scale over those two days. The rest of the weekend belongs to village fairs, volunteer-run festivals and summer seasons reaching their last date.
Lit boats, castle courtyards and two rock nights
Saturday evening, on the banks of the Creuse, the Fête des Barques at Lurais sends out a dozen illuminated boats, built in secret by teams of volunteers, with ingenious mechanisms and original soundtracks, as it has every August since 1988. In Blois, Des Lyres d'Été keeps stacking concerts, open-air balls and a riverside guinguette on the town squares and along the Loire, within a season of more than a hundred free events.
Two amplified-music line-ups play their second and last night on Saturday. Strange Festival holds the courtyard of the Maison Gitton at Châtillon-sur-Loire with punk, ska, reggae and trance, plus its campsite. At Civray-de-Touraine, Les Pieds dans la Sauce mixes rock, electro and emerging music, with a bar and food sourced from local organic farming.
Two castles open their courtyards.
Event'fest settles into the Château de Valençay on 22/08/2026 and the day after: open-air concerts, art exhibitions, local produce tastings, food trucks, a wellbeing village and hands-on workshops, in aid of the fight against school bullying and of young farmers. Further north, at Meung-sur-Loire, En Direct de l'Histoire ends its summer on 23 August with costumed actors, cloak-and-dagger shows and old games, from the attic down to the castle's underground passages.
Two seasons stop as well. The ChartrEstivales give their final date on Saturday 22, after some fifty free shows staged Monday to Saturday on the squares of central Chartres. The next day, Les Jardins en Fête close their run of free concerts in the gardens of Duke Jean de Berry, at Mehun-sur-Yèvre.
Sunday, the Petit-Valençay racecourse hosts Hippodromes en Fête at Châteauroux: harness and mounted trotting races, children's games, a fun derby and free bets.