When is the Festes de Sant Roc 2026?

The Festes de Sant Roc 2026 runs from Wednesday 12 August to Sunday 16 August 2026, according to council open data (Dates de festa major) + betevé; character from Cultura Popular (Ajuntament de Barcelona).

Festes de Sant Roc 2026: Barcelona's oldest festa, in the Plaça Nova

Last updated 7 August 2026

Enric / CC BY

The Festes de Sant Roc 2026 runs from Wednesday 12 August to Sunday 16 August. The oldest festa still held in Barcelona, run without a break since 1589 in the Plaça Nova beside the cathedral: the traditional retinue, the long porró, the cucanya and the correfoc of the Diables del Gòtic.

What it is

el Gòtic, Barcelona — Barri gòtic (7938615548). amaianos from Galicia / CC BY

The Festes de Sant Roc are the oldest festa still held in Barcelona. They have run without interruption since 1589, in the Plaça Nova, the small square in front of the cathedral where the Roman gate still stands. That makes them older than most of the buildings around them and considerably older than the idea of Barcelona as a single city: when they started, Gràcia, Sants and Horta were separate towns and would remain so for another three hundred years.

They are also unusually small. This is not a barri-wide programme spread over a dozen streets. It is one square, a handful of days, and a set of customs that have been repeated so many times that the repetition is the point.

Why Sant Roc

The festa began as a vow. Barcelona had an outbreak of plague in 1583, and the residents of this corner of the Gòtic came through it without a single death among them. They credited Sant Roc, and in 1589 they organised a celebration in his honour. The vow is renewed every year at the solemn festa major mass in the església del Pi, which is why the religious act sits at the centre of the programme rather than at its edge.

The saint's own story explains the odder parts of the festa. In the Barcelona telling, Sant Roc fell ill with plague while visiting the city and sheltered in the Roman walls. Everyone shunned him except the neighbourhood baker's dog, which brought him a bread roll every day until he recovered and set off again with the animal at his heel. The dog is not a decorative detail here. It has its own event.

What makes it different

Alongside the sardanes, the dances and the cercavila, the programme keeps a set of things you will not find at any other festa in the city: the traditional Sant Roc panellets, drinking from the long porró, the cucanya, the festa del gos, and the séquit, the traditional retinue of festive figures. The correfoc is run by the Diables del Gòtic together with the Víbria de Barcelona, setting off from the Plaça Nova and working through the surrounding streets.

The Associació de Festes de la Plaça Nova organises all of it, and its stated job is as much preservation as celebration. That is worth knowing before you go, because it sets the tone. This is not a festival built for visitors. It is a set of customs being kept up by the people who inherited them, in a square that happens to be one of the most photographed places in Barcelona.

Where it is

Barcelona's oldest surviving festa, held in the Plaça Nova in front of the cathedral since 1589. It began as a vow after the plague of 1583 and it keeps a set of customs found nowhere else in the city.

Open in OpenStreetMap

Metro: Jaume I (L4), Liceu (L3), Catalunya (L1, L3).

What to plan around

somewhereintheworldtoday / CC BY 2.0

Closing fireworksSun 16 Aug, 22:55The fi de festa: the fireworks that end the festa major.

In 5 days. The Festes de Sant Roc opens on Wednesday 12 August and runs to Sunday 16 August.

The programme, day by day

Every listing below comes from the council's own event feed for the festa, 40 records in total, with titles rendered into English. Times are as published by the organisers and can move on the night.