Are you a music lover and you are thinking about going to Switzerland for your summer vacation? If yes, you should know that you can combine the two things together and have a great summer vacation! Switzerland is not only famous for chocolate, watches and alps, but also for it’s great summer festivals, known all over the world. International artists from every music genre come here to play their music and entertain their fans. Participating in one of the Switzerland summer festivals is one of those things that you should do during your life. But, which are the most famous ones?
Montreux Jazz Festival
You surely heard about it, and that’s because it is one of the world’s leading music events. It is held in the city of Montreux, every year in July since 1967. At its start, it was only a jazz festival, but nowadays it attracts also the top names in rock and pop music, but also other music genres. This year is going to host the globally known Deep Purple, Jamiroquai, Billy Idol, Iggy Pop, Queens of the Stone Age and Van Morrison and many more. The festival will start on the 29th of June and it will end on the 14th of July, more than two weeks of great musical entertainment.
OpenAir St.Gallen
This is one of the oldest outdoor festivals in Switzerland and also one of the biggest, with a capacity of 30,000 persons every day. It takes place near the city of St.Gallen, in June, every year since 1977. The peculiar side of this concert is that the camping site is the whole area of the festival! This means that you can place your tent anywhere and maybe listen to your favourite artist right in front of it. This year it will take place from the 28th of June to the 1st of July. Names like Depeche Mode or The Killers will be hosted this year in this beautiful open-air festival.
Paléo Festival
The biggest festival in Switzerland, the Paléo Festival de Nyon is a rock festival, held every year since 1976 in Nyon, in the French region of the country, near the Lake Geneva. Not only is this festival the biggest in Switzerland, but also one of the biggest open-air in Europe, you can think that more than 200,000 visitors attend this event. This year, you can attend the gig from 17 to 22 July. Famous artists like Depeche Mode, Gorillaz, Lenny Kravitz and the Killers will perform in the stage of this huge festival.
….and many more!
These are just the most famous and attended summer festivals in Switzerland, but there are many more, in every city and for every musical taste: rock, metal, pop, alternative, electronic and even folk music! What all these shows have in common is the fact that they are all held outdoors, in the city centres, in the mountains, near a river or near a lake, which is a great way to enjoy the summer!
Wherever you choose to go, you won’t be disappointed. If you don’t succeed in visiting more than one place, you can always come back next summer or in the future. Save some music for later. Have fun visiting Switzerland and enjoying at the same time the summer festivals that this country has to offer. If you are travelling for this purpose, then have fun! If you are travelling for other reasons, take into consideration to stop by at some of the festivals! Let the summer and the music begin!