August
Air Guitar Worlds, Finland
Rock and Roll Fantasy
The Annual Air Guitar World Championship Contest, held at the Oulu Music Video Festival in Finland, invites the most animated and talented air strumming, finger tapping, pelvis thrusting air guitarists from around the world to show off their skills.
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Þjódhátíð, Iceland
Party in a Volcano!
We have personally visited this rip roaring festival located inside a volcano at the ends of the earth. All we can say is despite the “warnings” of our Icelandic friends of excessive country music and Viking like behavior, we had a great time. Come prepared for the weather, it can get really wet. Unfortunately the festival has a bad reputation of sexual assault, so best to not drink too much.
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Beer Can Regatta, Australia
Beer Recycling Pirates on the High Seas
Every year in winter (depending on the tide), the people of Darwin, Australia build boats and other nautical vessels made completely out of empty beer cans and take to the sea. The event brings thousands to the shores of Midil Beach in this Northern Territory city, considered one of the most isolated spots in the world, eager to watch these fun races.
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Bloodstock, UK
Posh Mosh
Heavy Metal's take on Woodstock. A weekend in early August is the UK's largest metal gathering. Bloodstock throws both indoor and outdoor events. The roots come from the first Bloodstock held indoors in 2001.
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Bog Snorkeling Championships
Up a Bog
Bog snorkelling is a sporting event that consists of competitors completing two consecutive lengths of a water filled trench cut through a peat bog, in the shortest time possible. Competitors must wear snorkels and flippers, and complete the course without using conventional swimming strokes, relying on flipper power alone. Wet suits are not compulsory, but are usually worn.
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Boom Festival, Portugal
Things That Go Boom in the Night
The Boom Festival in Portugal blends music and other arts into one great festival. The Boom Festival only takes place every two years; so keep checking the website for details on the 2012 festival.
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Burning Man, Nevada (USA)
Burn Baby Burn!
For just over a week each year, nearly 50,000 people gather in the Black Rock Desert, 127 miles outside of Reno, Nevada to live in a Mad Max-style community encouraging radical expression and self-reliance. Participants freely express themselves in every conceivable way including art projects, gifts, performances, themed camps, informational workshops, and music that attracts top DJs from around the world.
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Edinburgh Fringe, Scotland
The Fringe Festival Goes Mainstream
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe provides the opportunity to pick between thousands of fantastic arts performances spread out over three weeks in Edinburgh, Scotland. The festival prides itself on being the largest arts festival in the world and features an endless supply of theater, comedy, performance art, dance, music, painting, exhibitions, and more to enjoy.►
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Festival Filmmaking, Budapest
Make a movie at Sziget
Sziget, considered Europe's best festival is celebrating it's 20th anniversary and has teamed up with the Budapest Film Academy.
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Highlands Sing-sing, PNG
Go Tribal and Sing-sing
Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s last wild frontiers. Impressive natural geography and isolation has resulted in a modern primitive culture with over 700 individual tribes and the largest number of distinct languages in the world. Many tribes from around the country gather in August to put on an impressive display of tradition in PNG’s third largest city, Mount Hagen located in the Western Highlands.
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Hungry Ghost Festival
The Hungry Undead
The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh lunar month (14th in southern China).
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Il Palio Race, Italy
Wild Horses!
If the Kentucky Derby is the most exciting two minutes in sports, this bareback horse race might be the most exciting 90 seconds.
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kaZantip, Ukraine
Welcome to the Party Republic
This is the biggest electronic music festival in Eastern Europe. This festival started as a big air competition and party for kitesurfers who enjoy the good wind and long, sandy beaches of the Black Sea.
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La Tomatina, Spain
Flying Tomatoes in this Wild Food Fight
The last Wednesday in August, the streets of Valencia, Spain turn into a violent mess of oozing red for La Tomantina, the world’s biggest tomato fight.►
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Lollapalooza, (USA)
The Godfather of American Festivals
Perry Farrell founded the first Lollapalooza in 1991 as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction. It was also envisioned as a traveling roadshow featuring big names, while showcasing the up and coming. It even featured Shaolin monks and a freakshow.
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Lowlands, Holland
A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise
How could we do it? Impossible to miss Lowlands some readers asked. Well here it is...
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Nature One, Germany
Go Wild – Freak Out
Germany’s Nature One festival is an epic open-aired electronic music festival where you can dance from sundown to sunrise the first weekend of August. The festival grounds are located at a decommissioned US missile base and have party areas such as the Century Circus, Open Air Floor and the Groovalistic Garden. A secondary “festival” takes place at the campgrounds where everyone seems to be a DJ.
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Notting Hill Carnival, UK
London Gone Wild
The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event that since 1965 has taken place on the streets of Notting Hill, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, UK each August, over three days (the August bank holiday Monday and the two days beforehand). It is led by members of the West Indian community. The carnival has attracted around one million people in the past years, making it one of the largest street festivals in the world
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Oppikoppi, South Africa
Hill Fest!
Oppikoppi is the name of a music festival held in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, near the mining town of Northam. The festival started off focusing mostly on rock music, but gradually added more genres and now plays host to a complete mixed bag of genres. Anything from jazz, world music, house music, acoustic, comedy and all else in between can be heard on one of the multiple stages. Each year in August thousands of people flock to the farm to camp out in the bush and enjoy the music. The festival features mostly South African bands, although international acts are included in the lineup.
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Outside Lands, (USA)
Golden Gate Festival!
Outside lands is a new San Francisco music festival bringing an eclectic mix of music and good times to our favorite hometown park- Golden Gate Park!
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Pukklepop, Belguim
Pop Until You Drop
Pukklepop is quickly becoming one of Europe's largest open air alternative music festivals. 2011 sold out quickly, so don't get caught on the waiting list!
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Shambhala, Canada
Kootenany Shakedown
Shambhala Music Festival brings together the most exciting names in electronic music at this naturally blessed Canadian festival. Tucked into the gorgeous West Kootenany Mountain Range, festival-goers can look forward to five days and four nights packed with music.
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Star Trek Convention (USA)
Live Long and Prosper
Beam yourself up to the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas this August. Creation Entertainment produces the four-day convention as a chance for the biggest fans to celebrate their love for Star Trek and meet their favorite actors, writers, and directors.
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Street Parade, Switzerland
Uber Street Dance Party!
Zurich’s Street Parade will attract over a million people to dance in the streets at Europe’s largest techno-parade.
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Sturgis Motorcycle Ride (USA)
Harley Riders Unite for the Mother of all Rides
The Sturgis Motorcycle Ride brings over half a million bikers to the Black Hills of South Dakota for a motorcycle rally spanning the first full week of August. Started as a small single race event in 1938, Sturgis experienced multiple waves of expansion before becoming the behemoth event it is today. The rally gained notoriety for its highly-entertaining races and stunts in the early years. Today, the rally brings out families in search of a ride and a good time. Check out this video of the 2010 event.►
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Summer Sonic, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Switch-A-Roo
Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Strokes are headlining 2011’s festival which takes place in Tokyo and Osaka at the same time. They split the lineup into two groupings then switch venues for the next day’s show.
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Sziget, Hungary
Get Sziggy with it
The Sziget Music Festival has become one of the premiere summer music festivals in Europe. Sziget means “island” in Hungarian and over 100,000 eager festival-goers travel to Óbudai-sziget in the Danube to rock out and dance to some great music. Sziget has been described as "an electronically amplified, warped amusement park that has nothing to do with reality" or Europe’s answer to Burning Man.
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Testicle Festival, Montana
Rocky Mountain Oysterfest
Off of route 90 in Montana you’ll find this balls to the wall festival where testicles have been celebrated Montana style for over 30 years. It’s all the balls you can eat and it can get rowdy and raunchy. People are friendly and expect to see a lot of skin from people of all shapes, sizes and levels of intoxication.
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Wacken Open Air, Germany
Pedal to the Metal
Quite simply, WOA is the largest open air metal festival in the world. It's been going for 23 years strong in the small town of Wacken, which is only 50 kilometers from Hamburg. It sells out very early so plan ahead.
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Wanderlust Festival
Music and Mats
Wanderlust is a one-of-a-kind festival bringing together the world's leading yoga teachers, top musical acts and DJs, renowned speakers, top chefs and winemakers, and much, much more -- all in a setting of breathtaking natural beauty.
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Wickerman Festival, UK
It's better than it needs to be!
The Wickerman Festival is an annual music festival held near to Dundrennan in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Dubbed 'Scotland's Alternative Music festival', the festival celebrated its 10th Birthday in 2011.
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