Feria d’Arles 2026: dates, the programme day by day, and what it does to the town

Why a feria closes the monument

The Arènes d’Arles is a Roman amphitheatre by day and France’s oldest working bullring by feria. The first modern spectacle held in it was a course in 1830, once the houses that had filled it for a thousand years were cleared out, and it has not stopped since. When there is a bull in the ring the tiers are full of ticket holders, the floor is sand, and nobody is walking the gallery with an audio guide. So the monument shuts to visitors, and the town changes character for three or four days.

Feria de Pâques: Friday 3 to Monday 6 April 2026

Easter Sunday falls on 5 April in 2026. The programme opens the ring quietly and builds:

A novillada is a corrida with younger bulls and apprentice matadors. The rejón on the Monday morning is fought from horseback. Nine bodegas open in the town over the weekend, the hotels within walking distance are full months ahead, and the amphitheatre is closed to sightseers from the Friday morning to the Monday night. If you want the building rather than the fiesta, the Tuesday after is one of the emptiest days of the year in it.

Cocarde d’Or: Monday 6 July 2026, 17:30

This is the one I grew up with. The Cocarde d’Or has been run in Arles for nearly a century and is the course camarguaise the whole region wants to win. It starts in the streets with the abrivado, the bulls run through town between Camargue horsemen, and moves into the ring at 17:30. No bull is harmed: raseteurs in white use a small hook to snatch a ribbon and two tassels from the horns, each bull is in the ring for at most fifteen minutes, and the good ones go home to the manade as local celebrities. I watched my first from the upper tiers as a child and still think it is the best evening the building gives. It falls on the opening day of the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival, so the town is busy from both directions.

Feria du Riz: Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September 2026

• Friday 11 September, 17:00: course camarguaise.
• Saturday 12 September, 17:00: corrida goyesque, with the matadors in eighteenth-century costume in the style of Goya’s paintings.
• Sunday 13 September, 11:00: novillada; 17:00: corrida.

The Espace Toros village, with the bulls on show, runs from 5 to 10 September in the run-up. The rice feria is smaller than Easter and the weather is usually kinder; it also coincides with the end of the Rencontres, which run until 4 October.

Gladiators and concerts

During the school holidays the city stages gladiator re-enactments on the arena floor, typically on Tuesdays and Thursdays in past seasons; the programme changes each year, so check it. These do not close the monument. Summer concerts do: the amphitheatre hosts a handful of evening concerts each summer and the tiers are cleared of visitors that day. The Théâtre antique next door has its own calendar, with Les Suds à Arles in mid-July and Les Escales du Cargo. The course camarguaise season around the region runs roughly Easter to October, and the Trophée des As final is held in Arles in October.

What a feria does to the town

Three things. The hotels fill, first in the centre and then out to the ring road, so book months ahead or stay in Nîmes or Avignon and come in by train. The centre turns into a string of bodegas, open late, with music, and the boulevard des Lices is not a place for a quiet dinner. And the monument itself is closed to anyone without a seat, for the whole run. The opening hours page has the normal calendar, and the best time to visit page sets the ferias against the rest of the year.

Corrida or course camarguaise: which are you buying?

They are not the same thing and the programme does not always make that obvious to a visitor. In a corrida, Spanish-style, the bull is killed; Arles is one of France’s seven first-category bullrings for it. In a course camarguaise there is no blood, the bull is the star and the men in white are the ones who get hurt. I set the two out plainly, without a lecture either way, on corrida vs course camarguaise.

Tickets for the spectacles

The box office for every corrida, course and concert is arenes-arles.com, the official venue site. This site is an independent visitor guide and does not sell seats. The monument ticket for a daytime visit is a separate thing again, run by the tourist office, and is covered on the tickets page.

If your only day in Arles is a feria day

The day trips from Aix, Marseille and Avignon still run, and they see the amphitheatre from outside anyway, along with Les Baux and Saint-Rémy; you lose nothing you would have had, and you get the town in fiesta. The Aix departure is the most booked of the six.

Frequently asked questions