Festival Interceltique de Lorient

The Festival Interceltique de Lorient has been running for four decades in the town of Lorient. Every August, the heart of the city hosts traditional Celtic music like classical, folk, jazz and rock performed by musicians,singers and dancers. Painters, sculptors and even writers get in on the creative act and people come from all over the world to take part in the festival of culture.

Stages, parks and sites all over the city have experienced bands like The Cranberries, Sinéad O'Connor, Texas and The Dubliners over the years and the world-class talents have attracted hundreds of thousands of people, with 640,000 attending in 2011. That's more than the population of Luxembourg!

Right in the centre of the city at the “Village Celtique”, food, music, literature, clothing and crafts wait for the budding festivalgoer and make a welcome break from the rest of the festival. Although make sure you don't get lost in there and miss out on the “Nuits Magiques” - a spectacular display of pipe bands, dancers, choirs and fireworks.

On Sunday morning the spectacular Grand Parade of Celtic Nations kicks off with thousands of musicians, singers, pipebands and dancers from all over the Celtic world parading through the city streets in national costume. It's a pretty impressive sight, but not the highlights of the festival don't end there - on the final Saturday everyone retires to the fishing harbour for the Nuit de Port de Pêche, which features the best of Brittany’s folk and rock musicians.

Being in the middle of a bustling city there's loads to do outside of the festival, with local musicians getting into the spirit and performing free in many of the city’s bars and pubs every evening.