Folklore Festival Kicks off Tourist Season in Mikulov Region

Pilot Folklore Festival Kicks off Tourist Season in Mikulov Region

With the support of the COMMHERITOUR project, the pilot (zero-year) edition of a new folklore festival took place on 17 May 2025 in Dolní Dunajovice, in the Mikulov region of the Czech Republic. This inaugural event marks the beginning of an effort to harness the region’s folklore traditions in order to build a new festival tradition, aimed at both preserving cultural heritage and enriching local tourism.

The purpose of establishing this festival is twofold. Firstly, it seeks to activate and celebrate local folk culture—music, costumes, dance, storytelling—drawing on centuries-old customs that are central to the identity of the area. Secondly, the festival is intended to extend and soften the tourist season, shifting some of the visitor flow earlier into the year (late spring), so that tourism becomes more sustainable and less concentrated in the high-peak months.

In Mikulov, the busiest period for tourism spans from June through early September, with a pronounced peak in July, during which overtourism places strain on local infrastructure and communities. By launching this festival in May, the region hopes to alleviate that pressure, spread visitor numbers more evenly across the months, and offer tourists and locals more attractive experiences before the summer rush.

To date, the region does not yet have a festival of this kind. While there are village feasts held during June-August—always tied to the feast day of each village’s church patron saint—and wine harvest celebrations in September, there is no springtime folklore festival that brings together multiple villages or emphasises folk traditions as a unifying regional event. The new festival thus fills a cultural gap in the calendar, offering fresh opportunity for community engagement, tourism growth, and heritage valorisation.