2020's Best Festivals, Exhibits, Nights Out, and Novelty Experiences From Around the World

Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture — Galway, Ireland
In Ireland, 2020's European Capital of Culture, Galway will embrace the theme of "Making Waves" by hosting a year-long programme of music, workshops, exhibitions, theatre, and much more, including a conversation with Margaret Atwood on International Women's Day.

Glastonbury Festival — Somerset, UK
Celebrating 50 years since the very first Glastonbury Festival, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, and Diana Ross are some of the headliners already announced, with a final release of returned tickets in April.

Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser — London, UK
From June onward, London's Victoria & Albert Museum will be home to a major immersive exhibition dedicated to Lewis Carroll's Alice books. The most comprehensive Alice exhibition ever, this dive down the rabbit hole will uncover the books' impact on film, theatre, ballet, fashion, art, and beyond.

Glasgow International — Glasgow, Scotland, UK
One of the fastest-rising and most respected young biennial visual art extravaganzas in the world, GI includes around 100 shows from April 24 until May 10.

Grace Jones's Meltdown — London, UK
The annual Meltdown arts and culture festival at London's Southbank Centre will this year be curated by visionary singer-songwriter, actress, and fashion icon Grace Jones. Taking place from June 12 to June 21, the line-up is yet to be confirmed but will surely not disappoint with Jones at the helm.

Porthcawl Elvis Festival — Wales, UK
Attracting tens of thousands of revellers to the Welsh seaside town of Porthcawl in September, this lovable, eccentric festival celebrates all things Elvis with tribute acts galore.

Nature Urbaine at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles — Paris, France
The biggest urban rooftop farm in the world will open this Spring on the rooftop of Paris's historic Porte de Versailles exhibition centre. The social enterprise will host workshops and rent out land, as well as supply produce to a restaurant and bar run by the renowned Le Perchoir team.

Bassins de Lumières — Bordeaux, France
In April, Bassins de Lumières will turn an abandoned submarine base in Bordeaux into the largest digital art centre in the world, covering a huge expanse of walls and water in immersive works from major artists.

Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition — Copenhagen, Denmark
From March 23 until Oct. 3, Nick Cave fans — and those wanting to learn more about the rockstar, writer, and cultural icon — can explore 50 years worth of artwork, handwritten lyrics, literature, photos, videos and more at Copenhagen's Royal Library.

Tacones Manoli — Madrid, Spain
This immersive theatre show takes place throughout 2020 in a three-storey palace in the city centre, where guests are given a white mask on arrival to become an anonymous voyeur to the mix of flamenco dance and guitars, extravagant costumes, and imagery from the poetry of Federico García Lorca.

Arctic Bath Hotel — Lapland, Sweden
Arctic Bath will be a unique, luxury floating hotel and spa in the heart of Swedish Lapland on the Lule River, with a focus on eco-conscious indulgence and bathing holes carved directly out of the frozen river in Winter. Visitors can gaze at the Northern Lights, take a husky sled tour, go ice fishing, and much more when it opens later in January.

Torlonia Marbles exhibition — Rome, Italy
Nearly 100 marble statues, reliefs, and sarcophagi — dating from the fifth century BC to the fourth century AD — that have been hidden from public view for decades will go on display at the Capitoline Museum from March 25 to January 2021.

Midnight Sun Film Festival — Sodankylä, Finland
This small town in the Arctic Circle celebrates cinema and 24-hour sunlight June 10-14, with screenings throughout the day and night.

Lisbon: European Green Capital 2020 — Lisbon, Portugal
Bring Lisbon's commitment to eco-sustainability to life with a packed calendar of events and carbon-neutral celebrations during 2020.

The Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation Museum — Athens, Greece
An 11-floor contemporary and classical art museum, recently opened in Athens to showcase the impressive collection of shipowner Basil Goulandris and his wife Elise.

ElBulli 1846 — Girona, Spain
Following its 2011 closure, one of the most innovative restaurants in the world is back in February — this time as a centre of culinary research rethinking gastronomy and exploring the future of food.

Circle of Light — Moscow, Russia
The world's greatest light designers and audiovisual art experts take over the city each September, covering the city's biggest cultural landmarks, parks, and rivers with projections and more.

La Paloma — Barcelona, Spain
The reopening of a century-old dancehall after 14 years, La Paloma is set to reclaim its place as the quintessential Barcelona party hub.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures — Los Angeles, US
The Academy — of Oscars fame — will finally open its museum dedicated to motion-picture history in 2020. Guests will be able to see Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz alongside Jack Nicholson's corduroy jacket from The Shining, as well as a Hayao Miyazaki retrospective.

Edge — New York, US
Opening in March at 1,131 feet high, Edge will be the tallest man-made viewing platform in the western hemisphere, giving visitors panoramic views of New York City from a triangular platform at the top of the 20 Hudson Yards building.

National Museum of African American Music — Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Opening in Summer 2020, this major new museum will explore the huge importance African-American musicians have had on the sound of America.

MassArt Art Museum (MAAM) — Boston, US
A new contemporary art destination opens on Feb. 22 in Boston, offering free admission to make established and up-and-coming artists' work accessible.

Ambiente Landscape Hotel, Sedona — Arizona, US
North America's first "landscape hotel," a work of art and hospitality that virtually disappears into Sedona's iconic red rocks.

Area15 — Las Vegas, US
An entertainment, retail, dining, and art space anchored by interactive art collective Meow Wolf, featuring axe-throwing, a mixed-reality arcade, cocktails, and more.

NBA All-Star 2020 — Chicago, US
Watch squads made up of the league's superstars pitted against one another, either courtside or at one of many All-Star weekend parties around Chicago in February.

Babes Ride Out — California, US
The largest gathering of female motorcyclists in history: a celebration of friendship, discovery, and adventure, in October.

Ultra Music Festival 2020 — Miami, Florida, US
This three-day outdoor party (returning to its original home for 2020, March 20-22) blends live performances and DJ sets with eye-popping illuminated displays.

Rio: World Capital of Architecture 2020 — Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rio de Janeiro has been chosen by Unesco to become the very first World Capital of Architecture in 2020, and will see architectural walking tours, the World Congress of Architects, and more throughout the year.

James Turrell: Passages of Light at Museo Jumex — Mexico City, Mexico
Best known for his large-scale works filling whole rooms with colourful light, this exhibition showcases James Turrell's career highlights and new projects, on display until March 29.

Reggae Sunsplash — Jamaica
The return of the legendary '70s Jamaica festival in November after a 14-year hiatus, celebrating today's vibrant reggae scene and icons of the genre.

Grand Egyptian Museum — Giza, Egypt
Set to be the biggest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilisation, this colossal museum has been under construction since 2002. It will be home to 100,000 artefacts, 50,000 of which will be on a rotating display — including all 5,000 pieces of King Tutankhamun's funerary treasure.

Nyege Nyege Festival — Njeru, Uganda
Perhaps the best new festival of recent years, Uganda's Nyege Nyege — which translates as the uncontrollable urge to dance — takes over an abandoned hotel resort at the source of the River Nile in September for a truly progressive fusion of contemporary and traditional acts from across East Africa and beyond.

Expo 2020 Dubai — Dubai, UAE
Kicking off on Oct. 20, this huge six-month event billed as the world's greatest show is the modern-day equivalent of the World's Fair, and the first time an Expo will be held in the Middle East, Africa, or South Asia.

The National Aquarium — Abu Dhabi, UAE
The largest aquarium in the Middle East will open by the end of 2020, with ethical conservation and education front-of-mind when sourcing the inhabitants.

Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival — Joujouka, Morocco
A micro-festival from the Sufi trance musicians who pass their skills from generation to generation, and inspired Timothy Leary and Brian Jones in the '60s, running from June 5-7.

Kanamara Matsuri — Kawasaki, Japan
Japan's Festival of the Steel Phallus takes place on April 5, and its origin is more serious than visitors might think, commemorating the sex workers who stopped through Kawasaki to ask for protection from STIs at the city's main shrine. This year will see an extended English-language programme explaining the event, with plenty of Instagrammable moments.

TeamLab SuperNature Macao — Macao
At The Venetian Macao, from Jan. 21 to the end of March, SuperNature is a typically immersive, 'gram-worthy art experience from Japan's TeamLab collective.

The Unconformity — Tasmania, Australia
A biennial celebration in October of contemporary arts where visitors are encouraged to look both backwards and forwards in time through music, visual arts, and performance.

The Lume — Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne's new digital art gallery is set to open in Autumn 2020, with a local team bringing immersive art projections to a 2,000-square-metre space.

#FutureTogether at Gardens by the Bay — Singapore
Running from Jan. 16 to March 31, the #FutureTogether art exhibition will take over Singapore's Gardens by the Bay nature park with multisensory installations and more.