ships to visit, parades, concerts, activities… discover the entire program of maritime festivals

The maritime festivals will take place from July 12 to 17, 2024 in Brest. This year, they bring together 1,000 boats, 9,000 sailors, 2,500 artists, all on 7 km of quays. Festivities that will end with a Grand Parade on July 18. Update on the program.

This is surely the most anticipated edition. After the cancellation of those of 2020, then 2021, the maritime festivals are returning to Brest.

With many new features: the historic main stage is replaced by six stage spaces across the entire site, the programming has been greatly strengthened, including the nighttime show of 400 drones and video mapping on the Grand Large building.

They are the stars of the maritime festivals: more than 1,000 boats from all over the world will be gathered in Brest for almost a week. Among them, spectators will be able to discover eight ships on deck visits, including three tall ships, two French Navy ships and two boats dedicated to research:

A 58 meter long French three-masted ship, the last of the large 19th century commercial sailing ships still in navigation, currently used for sailing lessons. He was the one who carried the Olympic flame from Athens in Marseille.

• The Santa Maria Manuela (1937)

A 68-metre-long Portuguese four-masted ship, a survivor from the era of the great Portuguese fishing vessels, which has become a training ship.

A 70 meter long Dutch three-masted ship, moored during the holidays at Quai Crédit Agricole de Bretagne.

A tripartite minehunter (CMT). This type of ship was designed during the Cold War to counter mine laying, which the Soviets specialized in. At the end of 2020, the Andromeda became the first military ship in history to sail with a propeller manufactured using 3D printing.

Another tripartite mine hunter (CMT). It makes of the four new metropolitan support vessels (BSAM, ex-BSAH) of the French Navy. Ships intended for support of naval forces, in France or abroad, for maritime works and the protection of property and people.

A ship from the Department of underwater and underwater archaeological research (DRASSM) dedicated to archaeological research.

A boat from the French Oceanographic Fleet (FOF) operated by Ifremer, dedicated to scientific research in the marine environment.

An unusual Dutch ship, which once served as a hydrograph for the Royal Netherlands Navy.

Beyond the evening musical atmosphere, the Maritime Festivals include a multitude of nighttime shows with the unmissable fireworks display on July 14.

On opening night, Friday July 12, a drone “show” will be presented.

On Wednesday July 17, a large night parade, set to music by Yann Tiersen, with a video projection on the Grand Large building proposed by the Breton company “Spectaculaire”.

A large space will be entirely dedicated to children. It will take the form of a “pirate lair“, a 450 m² marquee, the large Magic Mirror Paradiso, open every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Inside, there are continuous shows: magic in the morning, concert in the afternoon and then educational workshops, a freely accessible relaxation area with story reading, games area and early childhood area for ages 0 to 3.

This space will also be the starting point for a major treasure hunt across the entire Holiday site.

Children under 10 years old will enjoy free entry to the maritime festivals.

Every day, at the five stops, activities will immerse the public in the discovery of cultures and knowledge from around the world.

It is also in these stopovers that four of the five musical stages of Brest 2024 will be located.

It offers an exhibition dedicated to renewable marine energies as well as tastings and activities to discover the fishing and aquaculture sectors of Brittany.

The Penn Ar Bed invites visitors out to sea to discover the islands of the Breton tip while BrestPort will present the diversity of port professions.

On a cultural level, the Sked and Kenleur Penn-ar-Bed associations will introduce visitors to the language, dances and traditional games such as Breton palet and gwez-boell (checkers game).

Discovery of the history of surfing and the va’a (Polynesian canoe), demonstrations of traditional dances, culinary tastings, permanent and temporary tattoos with traditional Polynesian designs.

This stopover, supported by the Canoe-Kayak Club Brestois and Polynesian culture associations, will immerse visitors in the island culture of the Pacific Ocean.

Like an open-air Mediterranean market, this stopover will highlight the history and cultural diversity of the Mediterranean through workshops on the construction of traditional objects, photographic exhibitions and gastronomic tastings.

Demonstrations of jousting on land, a sporting tradition which pits two opponents against each other, equipped with long lances and facing each other on boats.

Italian, Catalan and Sète delegations will also introduce a flotilla of heritage boats from these major maritime regions.

• Stopover in the Channel and Celtic Sea

On the program, exhibitions of traditional fishing boats, tastings of seafood, medieval construction workshops, seamanship workshops, making marine knots and carpentry methods…

In collaboration with the French Polar Institute, this stopover offers an in-depth and educational exploration of the planet’s most extreme environments to better understand the impacts of the transformations underway in the poles.

Exhibitions, meetings with winter residents (those who spend the winter in these isolated regions), a show based on a northern lights simulator, a graffiti artist who will create a fresco on a container for the Antarctic, and even live broadcasts from French stations.

Four concert stages will be nestled in the major maritime ports of call.

Enough to leave room for “music open to the world with Brest as its capital”.

The first “Atlantique” stage is dedicated to the legends of Breton music as well as the new Armorican scene with, among others, Alan Stivell, Dan Ar Braz and Red Cardell.

The second scene “Channel – Celtic Sea” will highlight Celtic music and English rock.

The third, the “Mediterranean” stage, offers a high-energy atmosphere from oriental pop to flamenco.

As for the fourth scene, “Pacifique”, it will resonate to the sounds of Kanak rhythms and Polynesian dances.

Old rigging, large sailboat, rowboat and even perhaps tugboat, on July 18, hundreds of boats will parade from Brest to Douarnenez. The Grand Parade, the highlight of the Brest maritime festivals, will take place. After much hesitation, the region agreed to organize it. But under certain environmental conditions:

The responsible attitude will be to spread out across the coast, not to concentrate in certain places.

Loïc Hénaff

Regional elected official and in charge of organizing the parade

” The idea is to mitigate the impact at seaexplains Loïc Hénaff, regional elected official and in charge of organizing the parade. We are in a nesting or post-nesting period, so we will not have to go to certain places, but the sailors know that. We just have to tell them where not to go.”

On the spectator side too, the Region intends to instill changes in behavior: “The responsible attitude will be to spread out across the coast, not to concentrate in certain places.”

And to avoid these crowds, the boats will parade further offshore than in previous editions: ” We will ensure that the boats do not pass too close to the points of the coast,says Loïc Hénaff. It is agreed that the passenger between the Tas de Pois will no longer be made. Besides, the sailors themselves said that it was not very reasonable. “