Reggio Calabria Events

The Reggio calendar is dominated by one September festival, with a strong summer season on the seafront.

Madonna della Consolazione

The city's patronal feast, held over several days in September. The icon is carried down from the sanctuary on the hill into the cathedral by bearers on foot, escorted by an enormous crowd, and returned in November. It is the largest gathering of the Reggio year and is entirely a local occasion — the city effectively stops for it.

Summer on the lungomare

From June to September the seafront carries concerts, open-air cinema, food events and a nightly crowd. Most of it is free and none of it is aimed at visitors.

The strait

Swordfish season runs through spring and early summer, and the coastal villages either side of the city hold festivals around it.

Easter

Holy Week processions in the city and, more strikingly, in the Aspromonte villages, several of which keep unusual and very old rites, including dances and lament forms that have disappeared from most of Italy.

Reggio Calabria FilmFest and the summer season

The city runs a film festival and a dense programme of summer events on the seafront, most of them free and most of them attended almost entirely by locals. It is a good measure of a place that puts on a season for itself rather than for an audience that is not there.

Bergamot

Harvested from November to March, which is the one thing that gives the Reggio winter a season of its own.