Guide to Morocco’s festivals June 2026
Gnawa Festival Essaouira, main stage. Photographer credit: Assaoud
(Post Updated, May 2026)
I love June in Morocco. It's the start of Summer weather without the holiday crowds. The souks are loaded up with sweet Summer fruits. And the long sunny evenings are perfect for after-work beach swims, 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.
Read on for a summary of what to expect if you travel to Morocco in June 2026, 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
2-11 July, Anfa Park, Casablanca
Celebrate jazz, pop, folk and reggae music at this star-studded outdoor event in the heart of Casa. The lineup for 2026 — click here for the programme — brings together a mix of local and international artists, including Robbie Williams, Scorpions, Ms Lauren Hill, Jessie J, and many more. A lively city crowd gathers at Anfa Park, Arab League Park, and the streets of Casablanca. Tickets are available online here.
Mawazine
19-27 June, various venues, Rabat
2024 marked a long-awaited comeback for Mawazine. Before that 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 21st 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.
Essaouira Gnawa Festival
25-27 June 2026 Essaouira
This year's 27th 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.
Fes Festival of World Sacred Music
4-7 June 2026, various venues, Fes
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.
Cherry Harvest Festival
Sefrou
Every year, around mid-June, the cherry harvest is marked by 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.
Planning your trip?
If you would like help planning your trip to Morocco, I offer a travel planning service via a 30-minute Zoom/ Teams (GBP50/USD65).
Sally Kirby is a UK-born travel writer based in Morocco. She has co-authored Lonely Planet Morocco and DK Eyewitness guidebooks, and contributes regularly to The i Paper, The Telegraph, and Adventure.com.