| Where: | York - city centre & Eye of York on Tower Street for Finale |
| When: | Late February |
| Time: | Finale at 6.30pm - other events various times (See website link) |
Each February the city of York celebrates its Norse heritage by staging a Viking Festival. The exact timing varies slightly with the school half-term holiday but is always in the latter half of the month, with a wide programme of events including a Beard Competition (open to children and ladies as well as men!), living history, lectures, workshops, walks, quizzes and drama. City centre locations are used such as Barley Hall and the Jorvik Viking Centre, though the finale is sometimes held out of town at the Rawcliffe Country Park or the Racecourse, where there is more room to have a pitched battle re-enactment with the pyrotechnics to follow. Note that though our photos and video feature boat-burning, this is no longer part of the event (for health and safety reasons).
Helpful Hints
In 2025 the festival runs from Monday February 17th to Sunday 23rd February-full details will appear on the website link below in due course.
Jorvik Viking Centre at Coppergate in York is well worth a visit for an introduction into the Viking experience, suitable for all ages.
The racecourse site (earlier location to the Country Park for the finale) was prone to waterlogging so, given the time of year, you’d be wise to wear wellies or stout boots when it’s held at an out of town location. It goes ahead whatever the weather (they’re a tough crowd in Yorkshire) so wrap up well.
Many events in the festival are free but there is a charge and pre-booking for the Finale (£20 a head) and some other fixtures. Check with the website for details (below).
Click here for the event website : https://jorvikvikingfestival.co.uk
York, the most important city in the North of England was invaded by Vikings from the late 8th to the mid-11th century. The Jorvik Centre demonstrates this with some great historic findings and exhibitions. During their stay they built a small city where Jorvik Viking Centre is just on the very site.
can u please let me know the date of burning of the long boat and is Ragnaroc is on this year
Thank you
Hi Stephen,
I’ve just been checking it out – the finale is on 25th Feb at a new location this time- the Rawcliffe Country Park and they’ll no longer be doing the boat burning for health and safety reasons (which is a shame) though there will still be pyrotechnics and the battle re-enactment. You can find the full listings for the festival, day by day, at http://www.jorvik-viking-festival.co.uk/events/upcoming/ but Ragnaroc isn’t on this time (lots of other alternatives, though),
Hope that helps!
Averil
could you tell me the dates for 2020..many thanks….
Sorry, Mark,
I can’t help you with that because the organisers haven’t announced the dates yet! If you go to https://www.jorvikvikingfestival.co.uk/contact/ you have a number of options for contacting them, but they usually only announce the dates much nearer the festival, usually around the end of the year. However they may be able to give you some idea already – and check with them if they’re returning to a week long festival (2 weekends and the week between) or running it over 2 weeks/3 weekends in future, as they did that for the first time this year and may decide to carry that forward into the future.
Hope you can get some idea from them!
Best wishes,
Averil