What's On in Waterford

The AIB Portrait Prize is the National Gallery of Ireland’s annual portraiture competition, and the exhibition of finalists and award winners from the 2025 prize is touring to Waterford Gallery of Art, where it runs from 18 July to 11 October 2026. It is a chance to see a national-standard exhibition of contemporary Irish portraiture without travelling to Dublin.

Portraiture makes for an unusually approachable exhibition: every work on the wall is a person and, implicitly, a story, which rewards visitors who rarely set foot in galleries just as much as regulars. The show brings together the competition’s finalists alongside the award-winning works themselves.

Because it runs right through the late summer and early autumn, the exhibition slots easily into a city break — Waterford Gallery of Art is in the city centre, a short walk from the Viking Triangle and the city’s museums, so it pairs well with a day exploring Waterford’s older quarter.

All Together Now 2026 is sold out, as confirmed on the festival’s own site — so only make the trip to Curraghmore if you already have tickets, and stick to official resale channels for any late hopes.

Waterford’s flagship festival takes over the grounds of Curraghmore Estate near Portlaw for the August bank holiday weekend. It has built a reputation as one of Ireland’s best-loved festivals by balancing big international headliners with spoken word, comedy, food and wellness strands spread through the estate’s woods and parkland, and it draws a friendly, multi-generational crowd rather than a purely late-night one.

If you’re elsewhere in Waterford that weekend, expect heavy traffic on the Portlaw and Kilmeaden roads from Thursday, and note that Spraoi fills Waterford city with free street theatre the very same weekend — a good ticketless alternative.

Every August bank holiday weekend, Spraoi hands Waterford’s streets and squares over to street carnival: international and local companies perform theatre and spectacle around the old city, with music and dance running across several stages, including a weekender stage on O’Connell Street. It has grown into one of the biggest free events in the country — the organisers reckon it draws close to 100,000 people over the three days.

The high point comes on the Sunday night, when the Spraoi parade sets off at 9.30pm and weaves through the city to finish at the GPO on the quays — hundreds of costumed performers, floats, light, fire and music — followed by a fireworks display launched from the River Suir.

Everything on the streets is free, and the programme is genuinely family-friendly. The city centre gets very busy for the parade, so stake out a spot early; an accessible viewing area for those with special requirements is provided near the GPO roundabout.

For ten days each August, Waterford becomes what the festival bills as one of Europe’s most vibrant open-air galleries. More than 70 local, national and international artists paint large-scale murals on walls across the city, adding to a collection of street art that has been building here for a decade — so you can wander between live painting in progress and finished works from previous years.

Around the painting there is a full programme: panel discussions and artist talks, film screenings, Draw & Dine experiences, and children’s workshops covering spray painting and mural making. A festival hub opens daily with DJs and a licensed bar, and a street party at Pocket Park on 15 August brings live painting, breakdancing and music together in one family-friendly afternoon.

There is no admission fee — the art is on the streets for everyone. Pick up a mural map at the Waterford tourist information office to plot your own walking route.

The August Festival is the centrepiece of the year at Tramore Racecourse, with four consecutive days of racing at the course above the seaside town. The first two days are evening meetings, promising competitive racing and entertainment as the light fades; Saturday is the Style Evening, when the fashion stakes run alongside the racing; and the festival winds up with a more relaxed afternoon card on the Sunday.

Tramore itself is one of Ireland’s classic seaside resorts, so the festival slots easily into a summer break on the Waterford coast — beach in the morning, races in the evening. It has become a popular meeting with racegoers from home and abroad, and the town is lively throughout the week.

Tickets for each day are sold through the official Tramore Races website, which the course recommends for the best offers and discounts. If you miss August, the racecourse also has fixtures on 8 October and 24 November 2026.

For over three decades the fishing village of Dunmore East has ended its summer with a weekend of bluegrass, and the 2026 festival is the 31st edition. Top American, European and Irish acts play in the pubs and hotels around the village, and the format is part of the charm: there is no entry fee, and each of the groups plays all of the venues over the weekend, so you can settle in one spot and let the bands rotate past you, or wander between sessions.

Music starts as early as noon on the Saturday and Sunday, which makes it easy to mix sets with time on the beach or the cliff walk. The atmosphere is relaxed and sociable — this is a village festival built around pub sessions rather than a ticketed arena.

The line-up is announced closer to the festival on the official website, which also carries a visitor guide. Dunmore East is a small village and the festival is a popular weekend, so sort accommodation early — Waterford city is close enough to use as a base.

Waterford’s harvest weekend puts the county’s food front and centre: markets of local food and drink producers fill the city, alongside cooking demonstrations, dining experiences and live entertainment — the 2026 programme includes musicians such as Brian Kennedy. New for this year is The Old Quarter, a strand of the festival rooted in the historic Ballybricken Green area of the city.

The programme mixes free and ticketed events across the weekend. Street entertainment, family events and storytelling with seanchaí Eddie Lenihan cost nothing, while the ticketed side runs from river cruises on the Suir to a yoga breakfast and a new guided foraging experience at Mount Congreve Gardens.

It is an easy festival to dip in and out of — graze the markets and free entertainment, and book ahead only for the special dining events, which went on sale through the festival website in early July. The festival is supported by Waterford City and County Council and the Local Enterprise Office.

Culture Night is Ireland’s annual national celebration of culture: on one Friday evening each September, arts and heritage venues across the island open their doors late and put on events, all free of charge, supported by the Arts Council and the local authorities. In 2026 it falls on Friday 18 September.

Waterford’s city programme is designed as an evening arts taster — a broad range of events and performances spread across venues in the city, so the idea is to wander, sample things you would not normally book for, and follow the crowds between them. It is a particularly good evening to see inside buildings and studios that are not usually open to visitors.

The detailed Waterford programme is published on the Culture Night website closer to the night, where you can browse events by location. Everything is free and no tickets are needed for most events, though some venues with limited capacity may operate first-come, first-served.

Imagine is Waterford’s autumn arts festival, and the 2026 edition is a milestone: its 25th anniversary, running under the theme “In Memories We Grow”. Over six days in late October the festival spreads theatre, music, dance, literature, visual art and spectacle across venues in the city, mixing local, national and international work.

Part of Imagine’s appeal is its breadth — in a single visit you might catch a play, a gallery show, a literary reading and a gig, and the compact city centre makes it easy to hop between venues on foot. It is a festival with deep roots in Waterford’s own arts community, so the programme always carries a strong local flavour alongside the visiting acts.

The full 2026 programme is published on the festival website in the run-up to October. Late October is a quiet, atmospheric time to see Waterford, and the festival pairs well with a city break built around the Viking Triangle’s museums.

Winterval turns Waterford into Ireland’s Christmas capital, running on weekends from 13 November right up to 23 December 2026. Billed as Ireland’s largest Christmas festival, it packs more than 60 events and attractions into the city — the Christmas market and illumination displays, live music stages, parades, craft workshops, movie screenings and fairground rides, threaded through the streets and squares of the old city.

A lot of the core festival is completely free: you can wander the market, catch the parades and take in the lights without spending anything, which is why the organisers describe it as a festival that can be enjoyed on all budgets. Around that free core sit the ticketed experiences — Santa visits, circus performances, pantomime, themed cruises and virtual reality experiences — which are worth booking ahead, especially for December weekends.

If you want the full festive hit with smaller crowds, the November weekends are the quieter end of the run.

Waterford International Film Festival reaches its 20th edition in 2026. The live festival runs over the weekend of 14–15 November, with screenings and events hosted at the House of Waterford and the SETU Chapel on College Street, and then continues online with screenings from 15 to 21 November — so even if you cannot make it to the city, you can watch the programme from home during the following week.

The festival is built around three competitions — short films, short screenplays and photography — which gives the weekend an emphasis on emerging film-makers and writers rather than red-carpet premieres. If you enjoy seeing new work before anyone else does, a festival of shorts is a rewarding way to spend a November weekend indoors.

The organisers have promised new events and experiences for the anniversary edition, to be announced alongside the programme on the festival website closer to November.