Morocco festivals June 2024
Gnawa Festival Essaouira, main stage. Photographer credit: Assaoud
I love June in Morocco. It's the start of Summer yet without the holiday crowds. The souks are loaded up with sweet Summer fruits. And the long sunny evenings are perfect for after-work beach time, surfing, and sunset picnics.
June is also peak festival season in Morocco! The dry, warm evenings are perfect for outdoor events and open-air stages. I love the energy of live music and being part of the alchemy when talented artists and performers from all over the world come together—uniting people through music.
Eid al-Adha, one of the country’s main religious festivals and a national holiday, also falls in June this year. Based on the lunar calendar, it moves throughout the year.
Read on for a summary of what to expect if you travel to Morocco in June 2024, and a round-up of some of the country’s exciting music, cultural, religious and harvest festival highlights.
What’s the weather like in June in Morocco?
On the Atlantic coast, you can enjoy long sunny days without rainfall and a refreshingly cool ocean breeze. Daytime temperatures are usually between 25-30°s. Beware, inland gets hotter, with temperatures in the desert and cities like Marrakech soaring into the 40°s.
Jazzablanca
6-8 June, Anfa Park, Casablanca
Celebrate jazz, folk and reggae music at this star-studded outdoor event in the heart of Casa. The lineup for 2024, click here for the programme, brings together a mix of local and international artists, including UB40 on their world tour, Paolo Nutini, James Blunt, Sarah & Ismael, Zucchero, Tarwa n-Tiniri, and many more. I am excited to share the joy of music and cultural and emotional expression with this lively city crowd. Tickets are available online through ticket.ma website . Day passes are MAD600, or 3-day passes are MAD1500 pp.
Mawazine
21-29 June, various venues, Rabat
It is a long-awaited comeback for Mawazine. The last edition was held in 2019, which, according to Hespresso, 'pulled in a whopping 2.75 million people, making it the world’s biggest music festival'. This year marks the 19th edition of Mawazine, also known as ‘Rhythms of the World’ for the international artists and festivalgoers it attracts over the nine days. Mawazine aims to be accessible and uniting, and a large percentage of the festival is free. You can read more about the festival’s business model here.
Performances will be held at different venues around the city.
International headline artists confirmed so far include Kylie Minogue, Calvin Harris, Ateez, Burna Boy, Nicky Minaj, who will perform alongside local and regional artists Angham, Samira Said and Ahmed Saad, plus many more.
Tickets are available online through ticket.ma website. Certain events require passes, pricing from MAD120 to MAD1400, and Black Card VIP passes.
Essaouira Gnawa Festival
27-29 June, Essaouira
This year's 25th edition, see website here, will bring the streets and squares of Essaouira to life with pulsing tribal rhythms from across Africa. The organiser’s press release referred to the festival as being ‘an open-air musical laboratory that welcomes the most audacious and improbable experiments, every year, to the great joy of fans and festival-goers in search of brand-new sounds and unique experiences.’
Gnaoua, also spelt gnawa is one of the best-known genres of Moroccan music, its origins in the 11th century and spirituality. Gnaoua ‘maalems’, or master musicians, perform a series of chants, some lasting for hours, designed to bring about a trance-like state and offer healing.
The festival plays an important role in creating a platform for an ancestral art form to renew and reinvent itself; ‘to provide proof that development through culture is possible' a festival spokesman stated. In 2019, the festival was added to UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage 2019 and established Essaouira as one of the world's musical cities.
Admission is free to main-stage events. However, if you want to be close to the stage, you can purchase tickets to front sections online in advance here. From MAD400-600 per day pass and MAD1200 for 3-day passes.
Fes Festival of World Sacred Music
24 May to 1 June, Fes
https://fesfestival.com/2024/en/
A celebration of Sufi culture. This celebrated music and spiritual festival draws international and local acts to alleys, historic centres and pop-up stages across the city. This year's extensive programme can be viewed here, with a link to purchasing tickets too.
Eid al Adha, 16 June, celebrated nationwide
During this four-day Islamic celebration you can expect a few days of feasting and celebrations across Morocco, and most businesses will close for the duration.
Cherry Harvest Festival
Sefrou
Every year, around mid-June, the harvesting of the cherries is marked with a festival in Sefrou. There's a festival parade with a Cherry Queen offering cherries to onlookers. While in the area, enjoy hiking trails through the cedar forests and visit the wild monkeys of Ifrane National Park.
Thank you for reading. I hope you are looking forward to enjoying some festival or other Summer celebrations here in Morocco, and/or elsewhere.
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