Festivals and fairs in Syria: the yearly calendar

Syria’s big public events cluster around two fairs: the Damascus International Book Fair in February and the Damascus International Fair at the end of August. In between come Intangible Heritage Week in June, theatre festivals over the summer and in September, and local markets from one province to the next. None of them has a fixed date; each year the dates are announced again. This page lays out what happened in 2025 and 2026 month by month, which gives a fair idea of where the next year’s events will fall.

What happens in which month

• February: the Damascus International Book Fair. The 2026 fair was open through the first weeks of February and closed in the middle of the month. It was the first book fair since 8 December 2024; books that had been banned for years were on the shelves, and Saudi Arabia was the guest of honour.
• May: the rose harvest in Mrah. A rose festival in a village in the Damascus countryside; the details are on the month-by-month calendar page.
• June: Intangible Heritage Week. In 2026 it opened on the evening of 1 June at the Arab Cultural Centre in Abu Rummaneh, Damascus, with an exhibition, a talk and live music on the Damascene oud. Through the week there were shadow plays, hakawati storytellers and the sanduq al-ajayib, a travelling peep-show box. Homs started the same programme on 14 June. At the end of the month the Abu Tammam festival in Daraa closed.
• August: theatre and a market fair. In 2026 a theatre festival opened in Damascus on 1 August. In the middle of the month the shopping festival in Mezzeh set up stalls for sweets, roasted nuts, books and stationery, with prices settled by haggling.
• Late August to early September: the Damascus International Fair. Details below.
• September: Aleppo and Idlib. The Syria Central Theatre Festival ran from 5-12 September 2026 on the Artists’ Syndicate stage in Aleppo: 14 plays in the official competition, two performances a day, companies from several provinces. The Idlib Book Fair opened on the evening of 12 September 2026.

What the Damascus International Fair offers a visitor

The fair began in 1954, stopped in 2011 and returned in 2017. The 63rd edition opened on Wednesday 26 August 2026 and closed in the first week of September; the 62nd had closed on 5 September 2025. In both recent years the fair ran from the last week of August into the first week of September.

Alongside the trade pavilions there are two parts aimed at visitors. The first is the open-air public stage, with concerts by Syrian and Arab singers every day of the fair. The stage has a history: Fairuz first sang there in 1956 and Umm Kulthum in 1957. The second is the crafts section, with stalls for ajami painted woodwork, Damascene brocade and desert weaving, plus children’s activities and poetry evenings. How the crafts are made is covered on the Syrian crafts page.

The entry fee and the transport arrangements for the fairground are announced separately each year. No written source gives a figure, so none appears here.

Who the book fair is for

For anyone who reads Arabic, this is the widest book market of the year. For anyone who does not, an hour there is still a quick way to see what Syria is printing that year and what can now be sold openly. The 2026 fair made the point clearly: books that had been kept off the shelves for years were on open sale.

Where to follow the dates

Heritage Week is a joint programme of the Damascus Culture Directorate and the Ministry of Culture; the theatre festivals and book fairs are confirmed by announcements from cultural bodies. The dates of the Damascus International Fair come from the fair’s own management. The Syrian press usually reports an opening on the eve: the 2026 fair was in the news the day before it opened.

The practical upshot: if the trip hangs on an event, do not book a flight before the date is announced, or buy a changeable ticket. For concerts and muwashshah evenings, the venues on the Syrian music page run all year. Confirm before you set out. Every date on this page comes from 2025 or 2026 and may move the following year.