Festivals and Events 2025
Highlights in this year's calendar
From the transmediale to the Gallery Weekend and the Long Night of Museums to Berlin Art Week - many Berlin events attract countless guests year after year. Culture is currently struggling with far-reaching cuts in the Berlin state budget totalling 140 million euros. Nevertheless, there is a fierce determination everywhere to hold on to the popular festivals and other formats and offer audiences the usual diversity for which Berlin is known. Here is an initial overview, which will be continuously supplemented and updated.
(Status: January 2025)
Jewish Culture Days
13 to 23 November 2025
The Jewish Culture Days invite you to get to know Berlin's Jewish culture. Every year, a varied programme of concerts, readings, exhibitions, discussions and theatre is offered. With this event, the Berlin Jewish Community wants to show the public the positive and life-affirming aspects of Jewish life.
Transmediale
31 January to 2 February 2025
Under the motto ‘(near) near but - far’, the 38th edition of transmediale aims to convey an understanding of how algorithms bring people into strange proximity and new intimacies with one another and which qualities of closeness are lost through machine-controlled actions. The transmediale 2025 takes place at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and silent green Kulturquartier and offers an extensive discourse and performance programme as well as a series of workshops and working sessions. The annual festival brings together international artists, researchers, activists and thinkers to develop new perspectives on the technological age using different genres and curatorial approaches.
EMOP Berlin – European Month of Photography
1 to 30 March 2025
EMOP Berlin celebrates its 11th edition this year and presents around 100 exhibitions that reflect the diversity of contemporary photography. This year's theme, ‘what stands between us’, invites visitors to reflect on the role of photography in current political tensions and the fragility of democratic values and to view photography as a project that makes social and societal realities describable. The three-day EMOP Opening Days will kick off on 27 February, when the festival centre at the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg will host an extensive programme.
Gallery Weekend
2 to 4 May 2025
Every year in spring, Berlin galleries open exhibitions by world-renowned artists. Founded in 2005, the weekend has established itself as a highlight in the international art calendar. The format combines high-calibre exhibitions with the experience of city and gallery spaces.
International Museum Day
18 May 2025
International Museum Day is organised annually by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) to draw attention to the thematic diversity and social significance of the more than 6,500 museums in Germany. For the 48th edition, museums present themselves as lively places of dialogue, diversity and exchange.
Long Night of the Sciences
28 June 2025
Every year, science and research institutions in Berlin and Potsdam open their laboratories, lecture halls, libraries and archives. Scientists explain what they are researching in experiments, lectures and demonstrations. The "smartest night of the year" communicates science in an understandable and entertaining way for young and old.
Potsdamer Schlössernacht
22 and 23 August 2025
The annual festival in Sanssouci Park is a unique variety show centred around Sanssouci Palace, the Orangery Palace, Charlottenhof Palace and the Roman Baths. Terraces, ponds and rondels are illuminated, the historical halls are open, and artistic performances, parades in historical costumes and concerts provide entertainment everywhere. Under the motto ‘Potsdam dances!’, the 26th edition invites you to stroll through one of the most beautiful historical sites around Berlin.
Long Night of Museums
30 August 2025
Acrobatics under domes, courtly dance in the palace, cocktails among dinosaurs - experience museums in a different way. The world-famous museums on Museum Island will be there, as well as art galleries and technology museums, planetariums and palaces. The Long Night of Museums is a Berlin invention. It was held here for the first time in 1997. In 2024, 45,000 guests were out and about on Berlin's most cultural night.
Long Night of Religions
Autumn 2025
The largest and most diverse interreligious event in Germany has been taking place since 2012. Up to 100 religious communities and initiatives open their synagogues, churches, mosques, temples and community centres (mostly in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and Mitte), invite people to talks, concerts, services, devotions and lectures and thus promote social dialogue.
Day of the open monument in Berlin
14 September 2025
The motto this time is: ‘Full of value: priceless or irreplaceable? The material value of a monument can be measured. It is made up of material costs, numerous hours of labour by skilled experts and the energy contained in the monument. However, even something with a low monetary value can become priceless splendour, an unsaleable common good.
Berlin Art Week
10 to 14 September 2025
Since 2012, Berlin's contemporary art scene has been showcasing what makes the city of art what it is: a source where art is created, a laboratory for themes and a place for new impulses and many discoveries. Galleries from all over the world present young art at the POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair, and high-calibre exhibitions open in Berlin's museums, project spaces and exhibition venues.