Asti Festival of Festivals

The Asti Festival of Festivals

The Festival of Festivals is the most important food and wine event in Asti and one of the most celebrated in Piedmont. Every year, on the second Sunday of September, the vast Piazza Campo del Palio fills with wooden stalls: each one hosts a Pro Loco association from the province of Asti, offering specialties from their respective villages. The result is an authentic journey through the flavors of the Asti countryside, described by many as Italy's "largest open-air restaurant."

A tradition born in 1974

The first edition was held in 1974, when Giovanni Borello, then president of the Asti Chamber of Commerce, brought together thirteen groups to launch the event. From those initial thirteen Pro Loco, the festival has grown to involve over forty associations, becoming a defining event for the entire region and a driving force for promoting the rural and gastronomic culture of the Monferrato area.

The Festival Village

The heart of the event is the Festival Village, set up in Piazza Campo del Palio with its iconic wooden stalls, one for each participating Pro Loco. Here, you can sample dozens of different traditional Piedmontese dishes: agnolotti, hand-rolled tajarin, bollito misto (mixed boiled meats), finanziera, bagna cauda, local cheeses, and hazelnut desserts, all accompanied by DOC and DOCG wines from the Asti region. The village opens on Saturday evening and remains lively throughout Sunday until supplies run out.

The magnificent historical pageant

On Sunday morning, the historical pageant takes place, the most anticipated and spectacular moment of the festival. Thousands of costumed participants, vintage agricultural wagons, tools, machinery, and animals recreate scenes of Asti's peasant life between the 19th and early 20th centuries. The procession winds through the center of Asti amidst cheering crowds, offering a vivid glimpse of a rural world defined by field work, grape harvests, and village celebrations.

The Asti September

The Festival of Festivals is one of the three major events of the Settembre Astigiano, alongside the Asti Palio and the Douja d'Or, the national salon of selected wines. During these weeks, the city of Asti, in the heart of Piedmont, experiences its most intense period, attracting tens of thousands of visitors from all over Italy drawn by the culinary excellence and traditions of the Monferrato, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.