Music festivals in Zurich

The first big weekend is Caliente!, usually in early July, when the Kasernenareal in Kreis 4 turns into a Latin barrio for three days. There are concert stages for salsa, cumbia, bachata, timba, Brazilian music and reggae, samba schools and capoeira groups moving through the crowd, DJs after dark and a street food market. The Sunday is a family day with free activities across the grounds. It feels less like a festival site than like the Langstrasse area with the music turned up, and it is an easy walk from Zurich HB.

In August the city belongs to Street Parade. On one Saturday, love mobiles, trucks carrying sound systems and DJs, roll slowly along the lakeshore from Utoquai to Hafen Enge, and stages along the route play techno and house from early afternoon until midnight. It is free, it draws a huge crowd, and the party carries on in the clubs, with S-Bahn night trains, trams and buses running until the early morning. Around the same weeks, the Zürcher Theater Spektakel sets up on the Landiwiese in Wollishofen for most of the second half of August. It is mainly theatre, dance and performance, but concerts are part of the programme, and the grounds with their bars and food stands on the lake are free to walk into, so many people just come for an evening by the water. Half an hour away by train, the Winterthurer Musikfestwochen fill Winterthur's old town in August, with many concerts on the Steinberggasse free to attend.

When summer ends, the music moves indoors. The unerhört! festival brings contemporary jazz to clubs and concert rooms in Zurich and Winterthur from late November into early December, with dozens of concerts over about ten days and a mix of Swiss and international players. First-timers should know that Street Parade is packed from Bellevue to the Arboretum, so agree on a meeting point, keep valuables close and bring water, sunscreen and earplugs. For the Landiwiese, trams to Wollishofen are the easy way in. Switzerland is expensive at festival bars too, so budget for it.