Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, the Festival d'Avignon is now one of the biggest international theatre events featuring contemporary live performance. For 789years now, the city of Avignon turns into a thriving theatre city.
The Festival d'Avignon represents 80 years of universalism in the service of cultural heritage and contemporary creation. 80 years of putting art into perspective with social reality. 80 years of a political and aesthetic project that observes the great metamorphoses of the performing arts and, through them, the diversity and complexity of the world.
Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Cour d'honneur of the Palais des papes is the birthplace of the Festival, which takes over 30 venues in the city and surrounding region. From gymnasiums to cloisters, chapels to gardens, quarries to churches, the Festival welcomes over 120,000 spectators to more than 400 events (shows, debates, meetings, readings, screenings).
To be the international meeting place for theatrical creation, the happy marriage between memory, history, heritage and the future, experimentation and; to accentuate the Festival's territorial presence; to make ecology a priority concern and to promote accessibility in all its dimensions: these are the main thrusts of Tiago Rodrigues' direction at the helm of the Festival since September 2022...
In 2013, La FabricA, the first space specially designed for the Festival, was inaugurated. A year-round artist-in-residence venue, it houses a room the size of the Cour d'honneur stage, and enables the Festival to step up its efforts to raise awareness of the performing arts among all audiences.
In 2026, following in the footsteps of English, Spanish and Arabic, the Festival d'Avignon will be welcoming an Asian language that is now spreading throughout the world: Korean. South Korean culture fascinates the world: K-pop, cinema, TV series, literature... But beyond this soft power, we want to reveal the richness of the Korean performing arts.
For this 80th edition, Tiago Rodrigues, director of the Festival d'Avignon, invites us to look to the future: "This edition will be set in the future and projected towards the next eighty years of the Festival. It is to the future that the questions posed by the guest artists will be addressed, in line with Jean Vilar's utopia".
For the second year running, the dates are aligned with those of the Festival Off Avignon.
Join us at La Fabrica on April 8 at 4:30pm, and visit festival-avignon.com to find out more about the Festival d'Avignon 2026 program.
NEW TICKETING FOR 2026
To ensure smooth access and avoid saturation of the site, this year's opening of online sales is based on purchase slots. After registering, each spectator has a dedicated time to make his or her purchases.
A two-step process
FROM MARCH 24, 10AM
REGISTRATION FOR A PURCHASE SLOT
Without this step, access to this first phase of online ticketing is not possible. Go to festival-avignon.com.
APRIL 13 TO 18
SALES BY PURCHASING SLOT
A unique access link will be sent by e-mail before the start of the slot selected at registration. Each purchase session lasts 2 hours, to allow for a smooth purchase. The same number of places are available at the start of each slot.
PRESALES SATURDAY APRIL 11
AT THE AVIGNON FESTIVAL FABRICA
From 9am, numbered tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. This number defines the order of pick-up during the presale. The Festival reserves the right to end ticket distribution depending on attendance.
From 10 a.m., a Rencontre with Tiago Rodrigues, director of the Festival d'Avignon, will precede the presale, focusing on the main lines of programming for the 80ᵉ edition. People with a ticket for the Rencontre will be given priority for the presale.
Pre-sales will begin at the end of the meeting. The Festival d'Avignon team will be on hand to advise and answer questions.
To sum up: pick up a numbered ticket at 9am, attend the meeting at 10am, then access the presale according to the order of numbers at the end of the meeting.
FROM APRIL 18
TICKET SALES OPEN WITHOUT SLOTS
At the end of this first phase, the Festival d'Avignon's online ticketing service opens on April 18 at 1pm, without a slot and subject to availability, on festival-avignon.com and fnacspectacles.com.
Further information at https://festival-avignon.com/
