Autumn Hues in Berlin: Music, Art, Food Festivals and More Events in Fall 2024
Berlin’s dynamism and energy never let up as the seasons change. While the action tends to move indoors in the autumn, Berlin’s numerous parks are still where you want to be, as the city begins to look like a giant landscape painting, with the incredible hues of the season. Art, culture, and culinary events abound, as Germany also marks the important anniversary of its post-Cold War reunification. Read on for our curated recommendations for enjoying the German capital’s fall harvest of events.
Take a tour with Insight Cities
Making your first trip to Berlin this fall? Take a Berlin introduction tour with us at Insight Cities and discover the tumultuous history that have helped make Berlin into the cosmopolitan capital it is today. Starting on the royal boulevard of Unter den Linden, where Napoleon once strolled, and ending at Checkpoint Charlie, we see the ways in which the city has been united and divided throughout history. Our expert historian guides have intimate knowledge of their city, ensuring an unforgettable learning experience.
Art and Culture
Berlin Art Week — September 11th to 15th, 2024
Berlin’s reputation as a European frontier for the contemporary art world makes Berlin Art Week one not to miss if you want to see the latest and greatest in contemporary art. All across Berlin, dozens of galleries, museums and other venues showcase emerging and established artists coming together to share their work and exchange ideas. We recommend Gallery Night, a Friday evening event where more than 50 galleries open their doors to host various performances, parties, and openings.
Days of Jewish Culture – September 12 to 22, 2024
Launched in 1987, as part of the 750th anniversary of the founding of the city, the Days of Jewish Culture festival is organized by the Jewish community in Berlin – one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world. The festival showcases the vibrant and diverse state of Jewish culture in the city and across the world, with numerous theatrical performances, poetry readings, public discussions, art exhibitions, religious services, and concerts by prominent Jewish diaspora. This year’s edition, the 37th, features some special events centered around literary giant Franz Kafka.
To learn more about the history of Berlin’s Jewish community, take our tour, In Search of Jewish Berlin. With the help of a Jewish Studies expert, explore the challenges faced by German Jews during the middle ages through the Renaissance, while a rich cultural life was developed in spite of their vulnerable status. Taking you through the historic ‘Barn Quarter”, we discover the district where Berlin Jews lived and worked until the beginnings of the Third Reich. Concluding at the imposing Holocaust Memorial designed by architect Peter Eisenman and Buro Happold allows us to meditate on the overwhelming human cost of this 20th-century genocide.
Berlin Festival of Lights – October 4th to 13th, 2024
In the middle of October, the city quite literally lights up for the Festival of Lights, turning its streets into the largest open-air gallery in the world. With site-specific, spectacular audio-visual installations at some of the city’s most prominent landmarks, this year’s festival’s theme is “Celebrating Freedom”, so you can expect some poignant historical displays and projections. With over 100 locations to choose from, the Festival of Lights has much to offer to everyone, making it the perfect choice for carving an illuminated path through Berlin!
Exhibitions
Regeneration: Climate change in green world heritage – and what we can do — closes October 31, 2024
Climate change not only affects the natural world, but also sites dedicated to global heritage. At Sanssouci Gardens in Potsdam, this open-air exhibition reveals how a changing climate has affected the area, as well as the precious monuments that were built here. The effects of problems such as extreme heat and drought are highlighted throughout, with the promising solutions of new irrigation techniques and an oak tree nursery available to observe.
Dream On: Berlin in the 90s — opens September 14, 2024
Combining art and documentary, the C/O gallery presents this photographic exhibition that documents the turbulent times of post-reunification 1990s. In the midst of the hope, fear, and confusion, photo agency OSTKREUZ was born, nine of whose members are having their work exhibited. With hundreds of photographs depicting diverse experiences, this East German team showcases their unique and sometimes marginalized perspectives in this liminal decade.
Bosch & Beyond — opens September 19, 2024
This special immersive exhibition, set in Kuelhaus Berlin, scales Hieronymus Bosch’s fantastically surreal paintings to larger-than-life proportions, allowing you to zero in on the various details of his seemingly chaotic works. Recurring themes of morality and sin are put in the context of Bosch’s time, and the exhibition includes modern perspectives on his work by 12 contemporary artists.
Festivals
Medieval Jugglers’ festival — October 3rd to 6th, 2024
The Spandau Citadel returns to its early Renaissance atmosphere when the Jugglers’ Festival takes place. In addition to entertainment harkening back to the Middle Ages, including minstrels, jugglers and jesters, the festival hosts taverns and markets that offer goods both true to the time and anachronistic. Case in point: kids can try the hand-operated carousel and Ferris wheels. The museum and exhibitions are also open free of charge, allowing visitors to explore the real history of the Citadel in a festive atmosphere.
Jazzfest Berlin – October 31st to November 3rd, 2024
Berlin’s big-ticket entry to the jazz world is one of Europe’s oldest festivals and easily among the continent’s most prominent. Established in West Berlin in 1964, by the Berliner Festspiele collective, the festival celebrates its 60th year in 2024. Focused on contemporary European jazz, with artistic representation from all over the world, the festival connects music and artistic visions to the pressing issues facing Europe and the world today. This year celebrates the multicultural Moabit neighborhood, including a musical neighborhood walk. Shows normally take place at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and tend to sell out quickly.
Food and Drink
Oktoberfest Berlin – September 21st to October 6th, 2024
We’d suggest you avoid the raucous crowds at Munich’s more traditional Oktoberfest celebrations and go for Berlin’s cheaper, more accessible and equally fun version. The city gives you three major choices to partake in Bavarian beer and sausage, over three weeks in September and October, and we’d plonk for the official celebrations at the fairgrounds at Kurt-Schumacher-Damm, near Tegel Airport. With a giant Bavarian-style beer tent, live music and thousands of revellers, don’t forget your dirndl and lederhosen, as you make a beeline for the wiesn.
Berlin Food Week – October 7th to 13th, 2024
Celebrating its 10th year, Berlin Food Week has become one of Europe’s go-to culinary events. The city’s epicurean masters bring out their best tips and tricks as they shed light on all the contemporary trends in global and Berliner food culture. With tastings, tours, talks, food stalls, cooking lessons, degustations and a chance to sample the haute cuisine of Berlin’s best chefs, whether or not you’re a foodie, you want to be at the food week. Do what your guide would do, and skip the crowds on the weekends, with a well-timed midweek visit.
Special Events
Open Heritage Day — September 7-8, 2024
Part of a Europe-wide event, Berlin opens more than 300 buildings and monuments to the public this year. As part of the event’s mission to introduce people to the importance of preserving and restoring cultural monuments, experts take the public on tours to get them up close and personal to the site as well as their significance to Germany’s history and the process to maintain them. Monuments with English-language tours in the 2024 edition include the Stasi prison, Berlin’s New Synagogue, and the documentation center for Nazi forced labor.
Berlin Marathon — September 29, 2024
The Berlin Marathon attracts over 40,000 runners each year to take part in the legendary challenge, making it one of the biggest races in the world. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the Berlin Marathon features a slew of other special events, including a sports expo, a literature marathon, and even a marathon prayer. The event itself will open with a ceremony featuring live music and other performances.
Reunion Day Celebrations – October 2nd to 4th, 2024
Over a million Berliners gather around the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate each year, in the first week of October, as the city celebrates the reunification of Germany. A three-day festival at the Platz der Republik culminates with a festival on October 3rd, a national holiday. With live music, carnival rides, games and traditional food from Germany’s different states, Reunion Day celebrations are another important day in the city’s event calendar.
An Autumn Walk in Tiergarten
An autumn walk in the city’s colossal Tiergarten park is perhaps our favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Berlin. Begin your walk after a lazy brunch at one of Mitte’s numerous hip coffee shops and take in the incredible hues of of the season. Tiergarten is Berlin’s premier park and the peace, quiet, solitude and inspiration it provides, to recharge your batteries, can rarely be found elsewhere. Don’t forget your camera and keep an eye out for all the incredible sculptures you’ll encounter on your path.
If you want to learn more about the fascinating cosmopolitan German capital, please contact us at Insight Cities. We can arrange a tour to introduce you to the city as a whole, take a tour of East Berlin, or explore the neighborhoods of Jewish Berlin. Get in touch with us at info@insightcities.com and our helpful team will help you create your ideal Berlin trip and tours.