Perugia Events

Umbria Jazz

The festival that defines Perugia's year. It has run since 1973, the main edition takes the city in July, and there is a separate Umbria Jazz Winter edition over New Year. Concerts run in the arena, the theatres and the squares, with a mixture of ticketed headline shows and free street programming. Tickets go on sale through the festival's own site; outside the selling window its ticket page simply reads Nessun evento in vendita. The scale is not notional: Minimetrò extended its service to 1:45 for the 2025 edition and carried 140,000 passengers, and for the opening night of 2026 it ran until 2:45 under a civil-protection plan. Accommodation in the centre is the binding constraint — book months ahead, not weeks.

Eurochocolate

Ten days of chocolate in the Centro Storico di Perugia, in November — the 2025 edition ran 14–23 November, and 2026 is the 32nd edition, themed Fate Dolci. Note the month: this festival has moved, and November is current. Minimetrò opens early, at 7:30, on the festival's two Sundays. The organisers can be reached on 075-5003848 or at info@eurochocolate.com, and they also run the Città del Cioccolato museum year-round, with a promotion for festival visitors. Expect the historic centre to be full and the Minimetro to be the only sensible way in.

The rest of the year

• Christmas and New Year bring markets to the centre and the winter jazz edition.
• The university calendar matters more than it sounds: the centre is at its liveliest from October to late June and noticeably quieter in August.

Planning around the two big ones

Umbria Jazz in July and Eurochocolate in November are the two weeks when Perugia is not a well-kept secret. Both are excellent and neither is restful. If the point of the trip is the art and the city, come in May, early June, September or October instead — and if the point is the festival, book the room before the programme is announced.