WOMAD Gran Canaria 2026: is it happening this year?
The short answer is no. There is no WOMAD in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in November 2026: no line-up, no programme and no tickets have been announced. The last edition took place in 2023, and the festival has not been back since.
If you found a 2026 date online, it almost certainly comes from an old page that was never updated. Below we explain what happened to the festival, where you can still catch WOMAD in Spain and what you can do in the Canary Islands instead.
What happened to WOMAD Las Palmas
WOMAD arrived in Gran Canaria in the 1990s, and for more than two decades it filled the Parque de Santa Catalina in mid-November with free concerts, workshops and food from around the world. For many locals it was one of the best-loved cultural events of the year.
The 2023 edition was the last. In 2024, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria city council and the organisers failed to reach an agreement, and there was no festival. There was none in 2025 either: according to the local press, WOMAD's international director, Chris Smith, said in May 2025 that the festival was "lost forever" on the island. The city council, for its part, has maintained that the event was not cancelled but is "under review" while it looks for a more sustainable format.
As of this article, in November 2026, no new edition has been announced.
Why 2026 dates keep appearing
For years, WOMAD's Spanish website kept a page about Las Palmas saying, with no year, that the "next edition" would run from 7 to 10 November. That text dated from 2019. Several automated event listings, and for a while ours too, read those dates as if they referred to the current year. We took our listing down as soon as we checked.
Another common mix-up is with WOMEX. WOMEX is the big professional world music fair for programmers, labels and artists, and it was scheduled in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria from 22 to 26 October 2026. It is not the WOMAD festival and does not replace its concerts for the public.
Where WOMAD still runs in Spain
WOMAD lives on in Cáceres, where it takes place every spring, usually in May, with concerts in the old town. The 2026 edition ran from 7 to 10 May. The 2027 dates have not been officially announced yet, so check the festival website before planning a trip.
Alternatives in the Canary Islands
If what you are after is that world music atmosphere on the islands, these are your closest options:
Festival Boreal, Los Silos (Tenerife): the closest thing to the spirit of WOMAD in the Canaries today. It takes place in mid-September in the north-west of Tenerife and mixes world music concerts with art, workshops and sustainability. The 2026 edition ran from 16 to 20 September.
Festival Internacional de Música de Canarias: from January to early February, with international orchestras and soloists on every island, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria included.
The weekly agenda: Gran Canaria has live music almost every day, from the Philharmonic Orchestra to jazz in Vegueta and concerts at village fiestas. You will find it all in our Gran Canaria agenda.
If WOMAD comes back, we will tell you
If the city council or the organisers announce a new edition in Las Palmas, we will add it to the agenda with dates, venue and programme confirmed by the organisers. Until then, be wary of any page that gives 2026 dates without a line-up or tickets.
Sources: Atlántico Hoy, "¿Está muerto el WOMAD? El festival desaparece de Las Palmas tras más de un año sin señales de vida" (October 2025); Las Palmas de Gran Canaria city council, press release on WOMEX 2026 (July 2025); Junta de Extremadura, presentation of WOMAD Cáceres 2026 (April 2026); RTVC, Festival Boreal 2026 (August 2026); archived copy of WOMAD España's Las Palmas page (Internet Archive, March 2026).
Cover photo (cropped): a WOMAD Las Palmas de Gran Canaria concert in 2010. Juan Ramón Rodriguez Sosa, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.