Events & Festivals in Virginia Beach

Local restaurants across Virginia Beach offer specially curated multi-course menus at set tiers during this winter promotion. The event draws both residents and visitors to establishments ranging from oceanfront seafood houses to Hilltop and Town Center dining rooms that might otherwise escape notice. Restaurant Week falls during the quieter off-season. The pace is relaxed. Reservations are easier to secure than during summer months. It suits food-focused travelers and couples looking for a reason to explore the local dining scene beyond the boardwalk strip.

Thousands of participants charge into the February Atlantic to raise funds for Special Olympics Virginia. The water temperature hovers around the low forties. The entire affair lasts only a few seconds per plunger. The crowd energy along the sand makes it a spectator event too. Costumes are encouraged and often elaborate. Teams from local businesses, military units, and civic groups compete for fundraising totals and best-dressed honors. Virginia Beach hosts one of the largest plunges in the state.

One of the premier spring road races on the East Coast, the Shamrock Marathon Weekend includes a full marathon, half marathon, 8K, and a final mile along the Virginia Beach boardwalk and oceanfront roads. The course is flat, fast, and popular with runners chasing personal records. A weekend-long sports expo and post-race block party with live music round out the event. The Irish theme carries through every detail, from green bibs to themed water stations. The crowd support along Atlantic Avenue is loud and sustained.

This long-running community gathering draws thousands to the Virginia Beach oceanfront before dawn on Easter Sunday for an interdenominational worship service facing the Atlantic. The timing is deliberate. The service builds toward the moment the sun breaks the horizon over the ocean. Local clergy lead the program. Choirs perform. The crowd ranges from families with blankets to active-duty military in dress uniforms. The setting lends a weight that indoor venues cannot replicate. The service is open to all without tickets or reservations.

The Virginia Beach Farmers Market operates year-round, but the spring opening marks the shift to the full outdoor season when local growers from Pungo and the surrounding agricultural corridor bring the first strawberries, lettuces, and spring herbs to the stalls. The market sits on a working farm property with a barn, open-air pavilion, and enough space to spend a full morning browsing produce, baked goods, local honey, and cut flowers. Live acoustic music often accompanies Saturday mornings. Food vendors sell breakfast items on site.

Pungo is the agricultural heart of Virginia Beach, and this festival celebrates the local strawberry harvest with pick-your-own fields, strawberry shortcake stands, live country and bluegrass music, carnival rides, and a craft vendor village. The setting is rural and flat, a sharp contrast to the oceanfront strip most visitors associate with Virginia Beach. Attendance regularly tops a hundred thousand across the weekend, making it one of the largest community events in Hampton Roads. The berries themselves are the draw. They are ripe, sun-warmed, and sold by the flat.

The Boardwalk Art Show has run for decades, lining nearly a mile of the Virginia Beach boardwalk with original work from hundreds of juried artists. Categories span painting, sculpture, photography, glass, ceramics, and mixed media. The quality is high enough that the show regularly lands on national lists of top outdoor art fairs. The ocean sits a few hundred feet from the displays. Early summer brings warm weather without peak July humidity. Families, collectors, and casual browsers share the boardwalk. The artists stick around to discuss their process.

This summer concert series stages free performances on the oceanfront most evenings throughout the warm months. Acts range from regional cover bands and beach music groups to touring singer-songwriters. The audience gathers on the boardwalk, the sand, or the grassy areas near the stage. The sound carries well in the open air. The atmosphere is loose and family-friendly. Shows typically start in the early evening and wrap by eleven. Virginia Beach keeps the lineup rotating. Repeat visitors hear different acts across a week.

Virginia Beach's craft beer scene has grown with breweries in the Hilltop, ViBe District, and Shore Drive corridors. This festival brings them together alongside regional producers from across Virginia. Attendees sample from dozens of taps, with styles ranging from light beach-day lagers to barrel-aged stouts. Food vendors pair with the pours. Live music keeps the energy up through the afternoon. The festival typically offers timed entry sessions to manage crowds. An earlier VIP window includes limited-release pours and shorter lines at every station.

The East Coast Surfing Championships is one of the oldest and largest surfing competitions on the Atlantic coast. It draws hundreds of competitors from across the Eastern Seaboard to Virginia Beach each August. The contest runs for several days across multiple divisions, from professional shortboard to longboard and bodyboard. Beyond the water, the beach-side festival features skateboarding demonstrations, live music, sponsor activations, and a vendor village. The atmosphere is relaxed and distinctly coastal. The surfers are accessible between heats for conversation on the sand.

This celebration of Latin American culture brings live salsa, merengue, bachata, and reggaeton music to Virginia Beach. Traditional and fusion food vendors, dance demonstrations, and artisan crafts round out the experience. The event draws a broad cross-section of the Hampton Roads community. It is designed as a family-friendly daytime festival that extends into the evening with a dance floor open to anyone willing to move. Cultural organizations set up information booths. Local Latin-owned businesses show their work. Participation in the dancing is encouraged regardless of skill level.

The Neptune Festival is Virginia Beach's signature annual event. The Boardwalk Weekend is its centerpiece. The oceanfront fills with an international sand-sculpting competition, a juried art and craft show, live entertainment across multiple stages, a wine tasting pavilion, and a military appreciation ceremony. The sand sculptures alone draw tens of thousands of visitors. Professional sculptors carve elaborate works over several days. The festival marks the transition from summer to fall. It catches the city at one of its best weather windows: warm days, cooler evenings, and lighter crowds than July.

Held during the Neptune Festival weekend, the American Music Festival stages three nights of nationally touring acts on the outdoor oceanfront stage and at indoor venues in Virginia Beach. Past lineups have spanned rock, country, R&B, and pop. Headliners draw audiences well beyond the local market. The outdoor stage sits steps from the beach. The atmosphere of a major concert with the sound of waves in the background is specific to this event. Virginia Beach positions it as the musical anchor of the Neptune Festival calendar. It is the unofficial close of the concert season.

The Sandman Triathlon takes advantage of the oceanfront geography for a swim-bike-run course with an ocean swim leg, a bike loop through the resort area, and a run along the boardwalk. Distances range from sprint to Olympic, making it accessible to first-timers and competitive athletes alike. September timing means water temperatures are still warm enough for a comfortable open-water swim. Spectators can watch transitions at the staging area near Rudee Inlet. Then walk along the boardwalk to cheer the run leg through the finish.

The Wicked 10K is a Halloween-themed road race along the Virginia Beach oceanfront. Runners compete in costume through a flat, fast course that follows the boardwalk and Atlantic Avenue. The event attracts serious runners chasing times on the straightforward terrain. Casual participants treat it as a costumed fun run. The post-race party features awards for best costume alongside age-group finishers. October weather in Virginia Beach is typically cool and clear, close to ideal running conditions. The fall light along the resort strip adds to the backdrop.

Virginia Beach's Oktoberfest celebration brings German-style beer, bratwurst, pretzels, and live polka and oompah bands to a fall gathering that capitalizes on the cooler weather and the city's growing craft beer presence. Local breweries contribute German-style lagers and Marzen brews alongside traditional imports. The crowd is a mix of families during the afternoon and adults-only energy by evening. Games and competitions, including stein-holding contests and costume judging, keep the atmosphere lively between sets. The outdoor setting takes advantage of October's comfortable temperatures in Virginia Beach.

As summer crowds thin out, the Virginia Beach boardwalk transforms into a mile-long corridor of holiday light displays that run from late November through early January. The installations line the path with illuminated arches, animated figures, and themed scenes. The ocean backdrop adds a dimension that inland light shows cannot match. The display is walkable or bikeable along the boardwalk. Some evenings feature caroling groups, hot chocolate vendors, and visits with Santa at the 24th Street stage. It is one of the few holiday light shows in the mid-Atlantic set directly on the waterfront.

As the holiday season opens, Virginia Beach hosts a market featuring local artisans, crafters, and small businesses selling handmade gifts, specialty foods, candles, jewelry, and seasonal decor. The market draws vendors from across Hampton Roads and fills a large indoor or mixed indoor-outdoor space. It suits early holiday shoppers looking for items with a local or handmade character that chain stores do not carry. Food vendors offer seasonal treats. The atmosphere is festive without the frenzy of retail shopping weekends in Virginia Beach.

Held on Thanksgiving morning, the Virginia Beach Turkey Trot sends runners and walkers along the boardwalk and oceanfront roads before the holiday meal. The race draws families, competitive runners, and costumed participants in roughly equal measure. Distances typically include a 10K and shorter options for younger runners. The Thanksgiving-morning timing creates a community-driven atmosphere. Many participants treat it as a family tradition. Finishing on the boardwalk with the Atlantic in view makes the event feel distinctly tied to its location at the Virginia Beach oceanfront.

Hundreds of surfers dressed as Santa Claus, elves, reindeer, and other holiday characters paddle into the December Atlantic to surf for charity in one of Virginia Beach's most photographed annual events. The water is cold and wetsuits are mandatory under the costumes. But the mood is entirely festive. Spectators crowd the beach to watch the red-suited surfers catch winter swells. The spectacle has earned national media coverage. Proceeds benefit local charities. The event has become a point of civic pride for Virginia Beach's year-round surf community.

Virginia Beach's holiday parade marches down Atlantic Avenue. Floats, marching bands, dance troupes, vintage cars, and Santa Claus close the procession. The route runs along the oceanfront. This coastal backdrop distinguishes it from inland holiday parades. Local schools, civic groups, military units, and businesses build floats. Production values range from homemade charm to polished spectacle. The parade typically falls on a Saturday in December. Families crowd the boardwalk area for a full morning of holiday activity.

Throughout December, Virginia Beach Town Center hosts live holiday music performances in its central plaza. Local choirs, brass ensembles, and acoustic acts perform seasonal standards and original arrangements. The Town Center development provides a walkable urban backdrop. Restaurants, shops, and a lit tree anchor the plaza. Performances are short, typically running an hour. They are spaced across the month so visitors can catch one on nearly any December weekend. The intimate scale and open-air setting make this a lower-key alternative to the larger oceanfront holiday events.