Olympics, Carnival, exhibitions and concerts between January and February 2026
Venice opens 2026 with a packed calendar of events featuring art, music and sport: the Olympic flame of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games concludes its journey through Veneto in Piazza San Marco on Thursday, January 22 at 7:30 PM.
Carnival 2026 is Olympus – At the Origins of the Game. The illustration for the official poster is taken from The Feast of Fat Thursday in Piazzetta by Gabriel Bella, the eighteenth-century painting depicting the “Forze d’Ercole,” human towers built in competitions of balance and strength, along with wrestling games and bull chasing, the popular Venetian competitions between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
And while the city prepares for the festivities, art galleries, theaters and cultural spaces light up the year with openings and performances.
The complete guide to events in January and February 2026 in Venice
- The Olympic flame in Piazza San Marco
Piazza San Marco
Thursday, January 22, 7:30 PM
Free admission
www.olympics.com
Venice is the final stop of the forty-sixth day of the Journey of the Flame for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games, arriving in Piazza San Marco where the torchbearers will light the cauldron. Carrying the torch in the final Venetian relay will be Red Canzian, Cristiana Capotondi, Francesco Lamon (Olympic track cycling champion at Tokyo 2020) and Alessandro Troncon.
The Milan-Cortina 2026 torch is designed by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Cavagna Group and supported by Versalis (Eni). As Carlo Ratti, curator of the latest Venice Architecture Biennale, wrote: “The most powerful symbols are strongest when they let something else shine.”
“Carnival 2026 is a tribute to the Milan-Cortina Olympics” announced Massimo Checchetto, artistic director of the event. From January 31 to February 17 the program includes water parades, performances at the Arsenale, traditional historical processions, dances and entertainment throughout the city. Read the full Carnival 2026 program
Music and Performances
- VENICE BURLESQUE FESTIVAL
Teatro A L’Avogaria, Corte Zappa, Dorsoduro 1617
Saturday, January 24 and Sunday, January 25
The International Burlesque Festival in Venice returns for its second edition under the artistic direction of Crazy Cat, a Venetian burlesque performer, organizer and teacher, in collaboration with Compagnia de Calza I Antichi and the Arte-Mide association.
– Workshop
Saturday, January 24, afternoon (€25)
– Competition and show
Saturday, January 24, 9:00 PM
International performers competing for the title of Doge and Dogaressa of the Venice Burlesque Festival 2026.
– Photo shoot
Sunday, January 25
The finalist performers will be photographed at various locations in Venice.
Prizes include a performance at the Festival of Erotic Poetry (February 14, 2026, Teatro A L’Avogaria), organized by Compagnia de Calza I Antichi during Carnival; the Doge’s Horn and Pellegrina created by Atelier Pietro Longhi (official supplier of Venice Carnival since 2017); an interview on Burlesque News Italia; an article on Force One Magazine; and direct access to Vintage Circus & Burlesque 2026 and Bologna Burlesque Festival 2026.
- INCROCI IN MUSICA
Auditorium Santa Margherita – Emanuele Severino, Dorsoduro 3689
The music series Incroci in Musica, born as a continuation of the literary festival Incroci di civiltà (now in its 19th edition, April 15-18), will take us on a journey through a program of concerts dedicated to musical traditions from around the world.
The series is promoted by Ca’ Foscari University, Fondazione di Venezia and Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari, in collaboration with Veneto Jazz and under the artistic direction of Giovanni De Zorzi (professor, musicologist and musician at Ca’ Foscari). The Music Breakfasts on the mornings following the concerts are wonderful: informal meetings with the artists curated by Giovanni De Zorzi and Alvise Seggi.
– Namritha Nori and Evren Öntaş Ensemble for Traces and Roots
Friday, January 23, 8:00 PM
Voice, oud, bağlama, saz, double bass, drums and percussion. Italian-Indian singer and songwriter Namritha Nori presents original compositions and pieces from the Greek-Sephardic tradition from her album Traces and Roots (Moonlight Records, 2024) with Greek musician Evren Öntaş.
– Momi Maiga Quartet
Friday, January 30, 8:00 PM
Voice, kora, violin, cello and percussion. Traditional Senegalese music interwoven with jazz and European classical music.
– Miras Silk Road Collective
Friday, February 13, 8:00 PM
Voice, dutar, rawap and baglama lutes, ghijak fiddle and dap frame drum. Traditional Uyghur repertoire On Ikki Muqam, a musical system of the Silk Road inscribed in UNESCO heritage.
Tickets: full price €15, reduced €10 (under 28, over 65, Ca’ Foscari faculty and staff, people with disabilities and companion), students €5.
- A PESCA DI SOGNI
Girl and Painter
Teatrino Groggia in Villa Groggia park
entrance from the park and not from the Fondamenta, Cannaregio 3161
Sunday, January 18 at 4:30 PM
Contact: apescadisogni@piccionaia.org
This is the first 2026 show for children and families in the A pesca di sogni season at Teatrino Groggia. The La Piccionaia production—written and performed by Gianni Franceschini with audio and lighting by Giancarlo Dalla Chiara—draws a parallel between the spontaneous thoughts of childhood and the reflections of maturity through the act of painting.
On stage, the conversation between an invisible girl and a painter searching for white becomes the pretext for bringing emotions and images to life for the audience: affections, nature, desires, fears, joys, sadness, happiness, good and bad.
Tickets (single €7, one grandparent and two grandchildren €14) online at Vivaticket or at the theater starting one hour before the performance.
- PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Centre de musique romantique française
San Polo 2368
Box office: Mon-Fri 2:30-5:30 PM
The 2025-26 season celebrates the bicentenary of Hervé (singer, librettist and operetta composer) and the 150th anniversary of the death of Louise Farrenc (pianist, publisher and composer, among the first women to teach at the Paris Conservatory).
The January and February program:
– Lecture: The Romantic Season
Thursday, January 22, 6:00 PM
Free admission with reservation
– Workshop-concert for children
Sunday, January 25, 3:30 PM
– Lecture: The Pleasures of the Table
Tuesday, February 3
Curated by Emmanuel Giraud
– Free guided tours
February 5-8
Reservation recommended: contact@bru-zane.com
– Cine-concerts: tribute to Buster Keaton
February 6-7-8, 7:30 PM
Three evenings of silent cinema with live piano accompaniment, following the tradition of early twentieth-century screenings.
The program, curated by Marco Bellano, features five films by American director and actor Buster Keaton (1895-1966), accompanied on piano by Gabriele Dal Santo with music from the nineteenth-century French Romantic repertoire, including pieces by Louise Farrenc.
– One Week (1920) and Neighbors (1920)
Friday, February 6, 7:30 PM
Two short films on the theme of love: one about building a prefabricated house, the other about the tribulations of two young lovers separated by a fence and hostile families.
– The Electric House (1922) and The Balloonatic (1923)
Saturday, February 7, 7:30 PM
Mechanical gags involving automated houses and hot air balloons. Followed by a toast.
– Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Sunday, February 8, 7:30 PM
Medium-length film in which Keaton plays a projectionist who dreams of becoming a detective and literally enters the screen, in one of the most celebrated sequences in cinema history.
Tickets: €5
Presentations and Meetings
- SCUOLA PICCOLA ZATTERE
Dorsoduro 1401, Zattere
Open to the public with free admission
Monday to Sunday, 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, closed Tuesdays
Scuola Piccola Zattere is an independent space in Venice dedicated to contemporary arts in the broadest sense and to continuing education, research and artistic production.
With rehearsal and studio spaces for artists, cultural operators, students and professionals, a reading room, a small restaurant and café, and with a program of exhibitions, workshops, residencies, curatorial projects, performances and artistic research, Scuola Piccola aims to create a place of dialogue between artistic practices and community, with particular attention to the interaction between space, body and creative processes.
January 2026 programming
January 8-15, 2026: Workshop “Department of Parasitic Dramaturgy” led by Jacopo Giacomoni
A laboratory to discover the unexplored, unpredictable, ephemeral field of theater studies.
January 17, 2026, 3:30 PM
Workshop for families
PICCOLA! Dyeing
Activity for families and children, focused on dyeing techniques and hands-on experimentation.
Open Call / Fellowship
Scuola Piccola Zattere has a thematic fellowship program that allows an artist to carry out their artistic and/or research activities for 3 months, from May 11 to July 31, 2026, at Scuola Piccola Zattere, connecting with the School’s artistic community and experiencing the rich cultural offerings of the city of Venice.
Exhibition “R.S.V.P. Résonnez, S’il Vous Plaît” ongoing until April 6, 2026.
- SPAZIOEVENTI by LIBRERIA TOLETTA
Dorsoduro 1134, Fondamenta di Borgo alle Eremite
Free admission until capacity is reached
The historic Venetian bookstore (founded in 1933) offers the public a space that hosts book presentations including those from its own publishing house (over 200 titles in the catalog, many dedicated to Venice), talks and meetings with writers in the SpazioEventi:
– Wanted. The Faces of Dissent
Photographic exhibition by Venetian photographer Federico Sutera, open to the public until January 31.
– Dictatura. Rome and the Invention of Absolute Power
Thursday, January 15, 6:00 PM
Presentation of the book by Barbara Biscotti (Solferino, 2025). In conversation with the author Felice Casson, moderated by Giovanni Pelizzato.
- PAESAGGI D’ACQUA
Water Landscapes in Venetian Villas
Ateneo Veneto – Aula Magna, Campo S. Fantin 1897
Thursday, January 15, 5:30 PM
Villa architecture and water systems of the Veneto region, among rivers, diversions and designed landscapes. Presentation with the authors, Franco Posocco and Amerigo Restucci, of the book edited by Mariapia Cunico and Giuseppe Rallo, with a text by Margherita Azzi Visentini and aerial photographs by Stefano Maruzzo. The volume is published by Marsilio Arte and promoted by the Regional Institute for Venetian Villas.
- DISORDINI DI PRIMAVERA – Episode 4
Casa Punto Croce, Santa Croce
Thursday, January 16 at 6:30 PM
Free admission
The independent cultural center Punto Croce presents the fourth episode of Disordini di Primavera, a moment of self-education open to all who wish to use theoretical tools to do practical things:
– Presentation of the book CorpoGiochi in 20 pratiche with the authors Zora La Violenta, Professor Didovich and Pandemonyo.
– Concert by R.Y.F.
- FONDAZIONE QUERINI STAMPALIA
Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Castello 5252
Info: biblioteca@querinistampalia.org
The Foundation’s Library (established in 1869 by the will of Count Giovanni Querini Stampalia) holds approximately 400,000 volumes and is open even on holidays. Discover the Venice of writers and bookstores. In addition to exhibitions, the Querini organizes guided tours, workshops for children and reading groups.
– Guided tours of the exhibitions
Sunday, January 25, Sunday, February 8, 15 and 22, 11:00 AM
Tour dedicated to Bella la vita a Venezia (the 69 paintings by Gabriel Bella documenting eighteenth-century Venice) and Disapparire (the dialogue between Baroque sculptor Antonio Corradini and photographer Luigi Ghirri).
– Workshops for children (ages 6-11)
Sunday, February 8 and 15, 3:00-4:30 PM
Activities related to current exhibitions.
Cost: €8 per child (museum admission free up to age 18)
– Reading group Di libro in libro
First Thursday of the month, 5:00 PM, meeting at the Library.
A book is read privately and then discussed together.
Participation is free and open to all.
Article by Lucia Pecoraro.
Cover photo: Settimo Cannatella.
