Ten European festivals worth your August, and where you can still get in

August is when the European festival calendar stops pretending to be reasonable. Ten festivals worth the trip, in date order, each with the one thing that makes it itself and an honest note on whether you can still get in. Everything below was checked this week.

Brutal Assault, 5 to 8 August, Jaroměř, Czechia

Primus, Body Count, Cradle of Filth, Deafheaven. Staged inside the Josefov fortress, an 18th-century military complex, with stages spread across ramparts and underground catacombs, plus art galleries and a horror cinema. There is no other metal festival that looks like this. Still on sale: festival pass around €225, day passes around €107. brutalassault.cz

Sziget, 11 to 15 August, Budapest

Twenty One Pilots, Florence + The Machine, Lewis Capaldi, sombr. An island in the middle of a capital city, five days long, and the first edition since Sziget bought itself back from its investors and returned to its founder. We have shot this one for years and written a whole guide to it: the short version is that the parts you remember are rarely the headliners. Still on sale, full pass €399, day tickets €109. szigetfestival.com

Øyafestivalen, 12 to 15 August, Oslo

The Cure open it, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds follow, with Underworld, Lily Allen, Clipse and CMAT underneath. A city park festival with a new expanded site for 2026. Tickets are the thinnest on this list: officially still available, but the shop has been flagging "few left" for weeks and Wednesday is nearly gone. oyafestivalen.no

Paredes de Coura, 12 to 15 August, Portugal

M.I.A., Bloc Party, Kneecap, Amyl and the Sniffers, Wet Leg. Portugal's oldest festival, and the only one here staged on a river beach: you swim between sets. Forty-nine acts, and one of the few remaining festivals where a full pass is cheaper than a single day at most of its neighbours. Still on sale, pass €130, day tickets €60. vodafoneparedesdecoura.com

Flow Festival, 14 to 16 August, Helsinki

Florence + The Machine, Nick Cave, Turnstile, Clipse, MARINA. Built on a decommissioned power plant in the middle of Helsinki, with a talks programme, a serious food line-up and an art strand that is not decoration. The most designed festival in Europe, in the best sense. On sale, but the official shop is flagging it as selling fast. flowfestival.com

FM4 Frequency, 20 to 22 August, St. Pölten, Austria

Twenty One Pilots, Lorde, Kraftklub, Paul Kalkbrenner, Fontaines D.C., Zara Larsson. Half an hour from Vienna, and this year Thursday turns into a dedicated electronic day. Still on sale: three-day pass around €280, day tickets €140, though several camping and glamping tiers have gone. frequency.at

Pukkelpop, 20 to 23 August, Hasselt, Belgium

Tyler, The Creator, Florence + The Machine, Yungblud, Deftones, Turnstile. Started in 1985 out of a youth house and still the festival where the next big thing plays a small tent: Nirvana, Amy Winehouse, Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa all passed through Kiewit early. Sold out since March, in 36 minutes. Your only route now is the official Ticket Meet-up resale page, where names are changed and ID is checked at the gate. pukkelpop.be

Lowlands, 21 to 23 August, Biddinghuizen, Netherlands

Tyler, The Creator, Lorde, Turnstile, sombr, Parcels. Twelve stages and roughly 250 acts, plus film, comedy, literature and theatre, which is why people who do not care about the headliners still go. Here is the surprise: it did not sell out in February, which for Lowlands is unusual, and tickets are still available at €365. One practical note for anyone bringing a camera: professional gear is not allowed on the festival site. lowlands.nl

Rock en Seine, 26 to 30 August, Saint-Cloud, Paris

Tyler, The Creator plays his only French date of the year, Nick Cave takes Friday, and The Cure close the whole thing on Sunday. Five days in the grounds of a 17th-century royal estate on the edge of Paris. Sunday is sold out and has its own official resale exchange; the other days are still on general sale. rockenseine.com

Reading and Leeds, 27 to 30 August, England

Charli XCX, Fontaines D.C., Florence + The Machine, Dave, RAYE, Chase & Status. Two sites, one bill, and this year Leeds gets a Thursday headliner for the first time in the festival's history. Reading has sold out of everything except day tickets, and its own ticket page now points campers towards Leeds, where weekend camping is still available. readingandleedsfestival.com

And if all of that is sold out

Three more, with the honest status attached. Green Man in Wales, 20 to 23 August, sold out on the day of release, resale only. Electric Picnic in Ireland, 28 to 30 August, completely sold out with no day tickets in existence, gone in under two hours a full year ahead. Creamfields in Cheshire, 27 to 30 August, day tickets only and Saturday is already gone.

One cancellation to be aware of, because the internet has not caught up with it: Off Days in Hamburg and Berlin, on 18 and 19 August with Blood Orange, has been called off entirely. The shows were moved indoors first and then cancelled without explanation, and refunds run through the point of purchase. Several festival listing sites still show the original open-air venues as if nothing happened.

Prices and availability move fast in August. Everything here was checked on 2 August 2026; check the official page before you book anything.

Credits

Amyl and the Sniffers at Sziget Festival, August 2023, shot by Annelies Vollmuller for Coda Photos.