Overview
Welcome to the Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival, the largest free nautical music and song festival in Europe, taking place 12th – 14th June 2026
We’re welcoming groups from across the UK as well as overseas performers travelling from France, Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands and beyond to be part of the festival. With performances from over 80 groups across multiple venues, Falmouth will be filled with songs of the sea for our three-day festival.
Falmouth has a proud and long history as a first safe port of call for deep-water sailing ships. It was there that sailors filled waterside alehouses with song and it is there that those shanties and stories are kept alive today. If you listen very carefully as you walk along Falmouth’s seventeenth-century quays, you can still hear them singing!
Expect over 40 groups from across the UK, Europe and further afield, performing classic and contemporary shanties in the many town and quayside locations. From cozy pubs to professionally engineered main stages, street corners to parish churches, Falmouth has something for everyone.
The next scheduled event is due to take place 11th – 13th June 2027