Venice Carnival: 2027 Dates, Free Events and Ball Prices

When is Venice Carnival 2027?

The official site, run by the city's events company, gives the dates as 23 January to 9 February 2027, with the festival closing on Shrove Tuesday, 9 February (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026). Those are the dates to plan flights and beds around.

Two caveats are worth knowing before booking. Several travel sites give 30 January as the start, and the city's own ticketed Dinner Show programme also begins on 30 January, so the dense part of the calendar is the closing eleven days. Where the official page and the secondary listings disagree, 23 January is the date the organisers publish.

The second caveat is timing. The theme and the daily programme arrive late. The 2026 edition ran from 31 January to 17 February 2026 under the theme Olympus, announced in October 2025, and the timed listings for each weekend were published week by week in January and February 2026 (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026). Tickets for the official Dinner Show went on sale in September 2025 for that edition and in July 2026 for 2027. So book travel on the dates above, and check the programme when it appears in the autumn if you need a particular event on a particular day.

Which Venice Carnival events are free?

Almost everything outdoors. There is no ticket for Piazza San Marco, for the campi or for the canal banks, and the whole public programme is free to watch. The published 2026 listings show the pattern to expect (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026).

In the square, commedia dell'arte and circus acts ran from 13:00 to 16:15, with the parade for the best costume at 12:00, 16:30 and 18:00 on the Saturday and at 16:00 and 17:30 on the Sunday. Street shows with acrobats and jugglers ran in the main campi from 11:00 to 13:00 and from 14:30 to 19:00, which is where to go when the square is full.

On the water, the Festa delle Marie came down the Grand Canal by gondola at 15:00 and reached the stage in the square at 16:00, the Regata de Carneval started at 09:30 from the Bacino di San Marco, and the Corteo delle Nazioni brought about thirty gondolas down the Grand Canal at 16:00 on the closing Saturday. The Arsenale water show ran at 18:45 and 21:00 on both nights of each weekend. The mainland and the islands keep their own free programmes, including allegorical floats at Marghera and Chirignago and a masked procession along via Galuppi on Burano at 20:30.

The Volo dell'Angelo and the Festa delle Marie

Both set pieces are free to watch from the square.

The Volo dell'Angelo opens it. A performer descends on a cable from the campanile of San Marco to a stage below, at 12:00 on the second Sunday of the festive period since 2001. Since 2011 the descent has been made by the winner of the previous year's Marie contest (Città metropolitana di Venezia, 2026). The tradition dates to the first half of the sixteenth century, when a Turkish tightrope walker climbed a rope from a boat at the Piazzetta to the bell chamber, so it was first called the svolo del turco. In 1759 the rope broke and the performer was killed, after which a wooden dove took over as the svolo della colombina. The closing counterpart is the Svolo del Leon, when the banner of Venice is raised up the campanile on the final Tuesday at 17:00.

The Festa delle Marie commemorates the abduction of twelve Venetian girls by Dalmatian pirates in 973 and was revived in 1999. Twelve Marie are chosen from applicants aged 18 to 28 born in or resident in the metropolitan city, and the Maria of the Year is elected in the Sale Apollinee of La Fenice (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026). One caution: the flight did not appear in the official 2026 listings for Piazza San Marco, whose weekend slots went to parades and street theatre, so treat it as likely rather than certain until the 2027 programme is out.

How much do the Venice Carnival balls cost?

One ball is run by the city, and it is the only one with a published price. The Carnival Official Dinner Show and Ball takes place at Ca' Vendramin Calergi on the Grand Canal on 30 and 31 January 2027, then from 4 to 9 February 2027, which is Giovedì Grasso to Shrove Tuesday. Dinner begins at 21:00, the evening mixes live music, dancers, acrobats and a DJ set, and entry is refused to anyone under 18. A period costume is compulsory and evening gowns and dinner jackets are turned away. Premium tables start at 650 EUR per person, and tickets are personal, non transferable, non refundable and cannot be exchanged (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026). Four costume ateliers give ticket holders a reduced rate.

The private palace balls work differently. They are sold by the venues and by agencies rather than by the city, no public tariff exists, and the figures quoted for the Grand Canal palaces run well above the official show. Treat any price you see as the seller's own, and check what it covers: the dinner, entry after dinner, or a seat in a named room. Tickets for the official show go on sale in the summer of the preceding year, so late bookers choose from what is left.

How crowded is it, and what gets closed?

The city transport company plans for more than a million people across the 18 days, with daily peaks of about 150,000, and expects the load to concentrate on the three weekends, on Giovedì Grasso and on Shrove Tuesday (AVM, 2026).

The Local Police carry standing powers for the period. For the 2026 edition, in force from 31 January to 17 February, two ordinances allowed them to regulate flows, impose one-way systems, apply temporary bans, fence off or close areas, limit access where crowding became a risk, and suspend or relocate street trading that blocked a route (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026). The stalls on Salizada San Pio X by the Rialto bridge were moved to Campo San Bartolomeo, Calle Larga Mazzini and Campo San Salvador on seven dates in February.

Piazza San Marco itself is managed by counting. Safety and security arrangements are set up from 07:00, marked and staffed exit routes are laid out, stewards with handheld counters track how many people are inside, and once the capacity limit is reached the entrances are closed until numbers drop. The city programmes events in the main campi for those who cannot get in, and reinforces the ACTV boat and bus services. In 2018 that operation involved about 690 staff, including 200 to 250 local police officers, 100 stewards and 60 firefighters (Comune di Venezia, 2018).

What Carnival week costs: transport and beds

Public transport does not change price for Carnival. A single ticket on the Venice network costs 9.50 EUR and lasts 75 minutes, a 24 hour travel card costs 25 EUR, 48 hours costs 35 EUR, 72 hours costs 45 EUR and seven days costs 65 EUR (ACTV, 2026). Those are the ordinary fares, the same as any other week of the year, so the vaporetto is the one line in a Carnival budget that behaves normally. The 24 hour card pays for itself on the third trip, and it earns its keep in Carnival week for a second reason: walking routes through San Marco and Rialto get reversed or closed at short notice, and a boat is sometimes the only way across.

Beds are where the money goes. Venice publishes no accommodation tariff, and neither the city nor the organisers release hotel rates, so any Carnival night rate you see comes from the seller. What can be said is that demand concentrates on the days the transport company flags: the three weekends, Giovedì Grasso and Shrove Tuesday (AVM, 2026). Two levers work against that. Take the weekdays of the first week instead of a closing weekend, and look at Mestre, Marghera or the Lido, which run their own free programmes and sit inside the same day ticket.

Can you wear a mask in Venice outside Carnival?

As a rule, no. Article 85 of the Testo unico delle leggi di pubblica sicurezza, the 1931 public security act still in force, states that it is forbidden to appear masked in a public place, and prohibits the use of masks in theatres and other places open to the public. The same article lets the local public security authority permit it in set periods and under set conditions, published by public notice (Gazzetta Ufficiale, 1931). That notice is what makes the Carnival lawful, and it is why a full face covering is fine in February and can be questioned in August. The sanction is administrative and currently runs from 10 to 103 EUR (Brocardi, 2026).

The everyday rules apply to costumed visitors like everyone else. Venice bans camping and sleeping out, littering, graffiti, attaching padlocks to monuments, feeding pigeons, walking around shirtless or in swimwear, swimming or wading in the canals and the basin, and cycling in the historic centre, even when pushing the bicycle. Sitting on monument steps, bridges, wells and quaysides to eat or drink is also prohibited. Fines run from 25 to 500 EUR, and in some cases the person is removed from the area (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026). Bridges are through routes, which makes a costumed photo session on one the quickest way to be moved along.