Festivals of Goa

Narkasur Effigy Night

On the night before Naraka Chaturdashi, neighbourhoods across Goa wheel giant papier-mache effigies of the demon Narakasura through the streets for judging, then burn them before dawn.

📅 7 November 2026

Feast of St Francis Xavier

Nine days of novena Masses and a fair in Old Goa, then on 3 December Masses from before dawn and a crowd of tens of thousands between the Basilica of Bom Jesus and Se Cathedral.

📅 24 November 2026

Serendipity Arts Festival

Move between old customs warehouses, riverfront promenades and heritage buildings turned over to exhibitions, performances, craft and culinary programmes across the whole of Panjim.

📅 13 December 2026

🎄 Christmas

Goa's midnight mass mostly starts before midnight, on open ground in front of the church, because amplified sound outdoors is allowed only to 10 pm unless a district officer has granted the festive relaxation; the week that follows is the single busiest tourist week of the Goan year.

📅 25 December 2026

🎭 Goa Carnival

Four consecutive days of street parades that move town to town, opened by King Momo, ending on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

📅 6 February 2027

Sao Joao

Watch young men in leaf-and-fruit crowns leap into village wells on St John the Baptist's feast (or join them, if a household invites you), then the decorated boat parade on the Chapora at Siolim.

📅 24 June 2027

Bonderam

Take the ferry to Divar in late August for a parade of flags, floats and brass bands, in a festival that began as a protest against Portuguese boundary markers.

📅 28 August 2027

Ganesh Chaturthi

In Goa, Chovoth is a homecoming: families gather in ancestral houses under the matoli, a canopy of forest fruit, and on the second and fifth evenings carry their Ganesh to river, creek, sea or well.

📅 4 September 2027

Shigmo

Stand on a town main street in March while carved floats of Ramayana and Mahabharata scenes roll past behind folk troupes with ghumot drums, in the Hindu Goan spring festival that has nothing to do with the beach.