Festival of Flanders Mechelen

Discover the programme!

For its seventh edition, Lunalia, the spring festival of the Festival of Flanders Mechelen, will once again be taking over Mechelen city centre. Along with its partners, Construct Europe, nona arts centre and Mechelen Cultural Centre, it will present a rich and adventurous programme. With Pavel Haas Quartet, Simona Saturova, Musica Gloria, Voces8, Zefiro Torna, Kris Defoort, Anima Eterna and many more. Discover the complete programme here.

The Hearts of Europe

Europe has many hearts. At Lunalia, you can come and listen to these hearts beating in Mechelen. Belgium will take on the European presidency in the first half of 2024, so it’s only logical that Mechelen will have a related city theme in the spring: Construct Europe. Lunalia’s response is a motto that reflects the many voices of Europe, with a focus on Central Europe and a special place in our hearts for the Czech music scene. One reason for this is the celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of Bedřich Smetana’s birth. Smetana was born in 1824. His operas, and particularly his symphonic cycle Má Vlast, ‘My Fatherland’ (including the famous symphonic poem ‘The Moldau’), are world famous, but his chamber music, songs and choir music also deserve to be better known. For this aspect of the programme, we are working in close partnership with Czech Dreams and our Czech partner festival, Concentus Moraviae.

Traffic circulation Mechelen

Since August 2022, one-way traffic has been introduced for cars and trucks on the vesten (ring around Mechelen). Traffic will travel on the outer lanes. Bus, cyclists and pedestrians will continue to drive or walk in two directions across the vesten, on the inner lane. Of course, the new traffic circulations take some getting used to. An overview with the main traffic insights of The New Vesten can be found here.

A downtown circulation map can be found here. This shows one-way traffic, which streets are car-free and how to get to the centre.

If you come to Mechelen by car, it is recommended to leave early to avoid parking problems. You can park at parking Veemarkt, the Indigo parking Grote Markt or Kathedraal.

Current updates on road works and disruption can be found on this website.

When navigating by GPS within Mechelen, it is best to use the Waze app, Google Maps is not fully up-to-date.

The second festival week of LUNALIA

After a successful festival start, we are organising 2 concerts this week in collaboration with Cultuurcentrum Mechelen. Saturday, Tiburtina Ensemble and Lieve Blancquaert are performing the programme 'Behold a woman'. Sunday, the Bruges orchestra Anima Eterna will also present, together with Olav Grondelaers, how a symphony is born.

We are also looking forward to two concerts in the Sint-Pieter-en-Paul church, one of the world's best string quartets, Pavel Haas Quartet, coming to enchant us with works from their homeland the Czech Republic. For the singers of Voces8, the renowned a cappella ensemble, a sold-out show awaits them!

For the little ones, LUNALIA is organising 2 performances of 'Le carnaval des animaux' together with DE MAAN. The performances sold out in no time, but today some tickets became available again. Be quick to get yours!