Jakubák Open Air 2026 Brno: The Festival That Turns St James Square Into the City's Living Room Every Summer

Every city has one place where, in the summer, everything just comes together. For Brno, that place is Jakubské náměstí — St James Square — and the event that activates it each year is Jakubák Open Air. From June through September 2026, one of the most beloved open-air cultural programmes in the Czech Republic returns to the square behind the Church of St James (Kostel sv. Jakuba) in the very heart of Brno's historic center, bringing live music, dance, community, and the easy warmth of a Central European summer evening to one of the most architecturally striking outdoor settings in the country.

The festival is free. The location is extraordinary. The programme runs for months. And as one Czech music journalist put it, perfectly: "Praha má svoji Náplavku, Ostrava Stodolní a Brno má svůj Jakubák." Prague has its riverside Náplavka, Ostrava has its nightlife strip on Stodolní, and Brno has its Jakubák.

The 2026 season opens on June 3 — the first confirmed Jakubák Open Air date — and runs through the end of September, with concerts typically beginning at 20:00 on programme evenings. No ticket required. Just turn up, find a spot in the square, and let the evening do what Brno evenings do best.

What Jakubák Is: A Free Outdoor Festival Built on Community and Location

Jakubák is operated by JAKUBÁK, z.s. — a Czech civic association (spolek) that has developed the festival into one of the cultural anchors of Brno's summer calendar and receives annual cultural grants from the City of Brno in recognition of its contribution to the city's cultural life. It is not a commercial festival seeking to monetise its audience. It is a community-funded, city-supported programme that believes free outdoor culture in a historic public square is exactly what a city like Brno should offer its residents and visitors.

The multi-genre format is central to the identity: concerts cover jazz, blues, rock, folk, pop, world music, tribute bands, and DJs — with no fixed stylistic identity other than quality and variety. A typical Jakubák season might include a UK blues-rock band one evening, a Czech indie act the following week, a tribute band the week after, and a DJ set closing a warm August night. The diversity is deliberate. The square belongs to everyone, and the programme reflects that.

The programme also includes elements that go beyond music: dance shows, drumming shows, children's programme activities, and the extraordinary annual tradition of the Jakubák Open & VeHiBa — a marble tournament (cvrnkaná) played at the opening of the theatre season with Czech theatre legend Bolek Polívka and actors from Brno's major theatres. This is, genuinely, an event where one of the Czech Republic's most beloved theatrical performers plays marbles with the audience in a medieval square as a way of celebrating the beginning of the cultural season. It has no equivalent anywhere else in Czech cultural life.

The Setting: Jakubské náměstí and the Church of St James

Jakubské náměstí (St James Square) is one of the most beautiful and historically resonant public spaces in Brno — a Gothic and Renaissance square in the heart of the old city, dominated by the Kostel sv. Jakuba Staršího (Church of St James the Elder), whose spire rises 94 metres above the square and is the most recognisable element of Brno's medieval skyline.

The church was originally built in the 13th century and completed in its current Gothic form across the 14th and 15th centuries. Its exterior features notable figurative sculpture — most famously the small carved figure of a man on the church tower that has been the subject of civic legend for centuries. The interior is a soaring Gothic hall with notable Baroque additions and one of the finest medieval nave spaces in Moravia.

Directly beneath the square lies another of Brno's extraordinary secrets: the Jakubská Ossuary — a mass burial site rediscovered in 2001, containing the skeletal remains of approximately 50,000 people accumulated over centuries of Brno history (from the plague epidemics of the 14th–17th centuries through to later periods). When its conservation and public access programme is completed, it will be the second-largest ossuary in Europe after the Paris Catacombs. The ossuary entrance is already accessible for guided visits.

This is the square where Jakubák happens — not a purpose-built festival ground or a converted industrial site but a living medieval public space that has been at the center of Brno civic life for 800 years, and that becomes each summer a stage for the city's cultural present as well as a witness to its layered past. The combination of the Gothic church tower above, the cobblestones underfoot, and the stage set against the southern facade of the square creates an aesthetic that no festival designer could manufacture.

The 2026 Season: What to Expect

The Jakubák Open Air 2026 season runs from June through September, with the first confirmed date being June 3, 2026. The full programme is announced progressively through the festival's social channels — typically in rolling announcements a few weeks ahead of each event.

June Opening and Early Season

The June 3 opening date launches the outdoor season in the same spirit every edition: a concert evening from 20:00 in the square, drawing the first summer crowd of the year back to Jakubské náměstí. The opening month typically balances Czech and international acts across its evenings, setting the tone for the diverse multi-genre programme that will unfold across the following four months.

Based on consistent annual pattern, the 2026 June programme at Jakubák will run on multiple evenings throughout the month — allowing visitors staying in Brno for the June festival season (which in 2026 also includes the Řečkovický CRAFTBEER Festival on June 5–6, ObrFest on June 12–14, and the Hollywood Undead headliner on June 15) to combine a Jakubák evening with other events in the city's broader summer calendar.

Summer Programme: July and August

July and August are the heart of the Jakubák season. The square fills with evening audiences throughout the week, and the programme during these months has typically included the widest variety of acts — international names from the UK and European jazz and blues circuits, Czech folk and rock acts, tribute bands, and community-oriented evenings with local artists.

Maraton hudby Brno — the Marathon of Music Brno — is one of the season's peak events, running across four days in August with 250+ concerts at 30 locations across the city, with Jakubské náměstí serving as one of the central stages. This extraordinary urban music festival turns Brno's streets, squares, parks, and public spaces into one giant distributed concert hall for four days — Jakubák's square is at the center of it.

Previous summer seasons have included acts of the calibre of the Eric Clapton Tribute Band by Cliff Stevens (USA — a 35-year touring veteran whose connection to the blues-rock canon extends to a Grammy-nominated original song) and The Daybreakers (UK — East London blues-rock described as fans of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, with significant European festival experience). These are not domestic-only bookings but genuinely international acts that choose Jakubák precisely because the square and the audience make it worth the travel.

Autumn Closing Season: September

The September programme brings the season toward its close with a deliberate elegance — acts and evenings that suit the cooling evenings of the Czech early autumn, when the light in the square turns golden before sunset and the audience brings jackets alongside their summer ease.

The Jakubák Open & VeHiBa — the marble tournament with Bolek Polívka — typically falls in late August or early September as the official signal that the theatre season has begun. Polívka, one of Czech theatre's most beloved figures (director and lead performer at the Divadlo na provázku theatre in Brno for decades), participates in person each year, playing the traditional marble game with the audience in the square before the evening concert by VeHiBa. This is a uniquely Brno tradition that has no equivalent anywhere else in Czech cultural life — a theatrical celebrity marble tournament as a community ritual.

The Buď Láska (Be Love) busking stage — a Czech-Ukrainian cultural initiative that emerged from Brno's significant Ukrainian community and responds, as the organisers put it, to "the need for deeper connection between the Czech and Ukrainian communities in Brno" — has appeared in the Jakubák programme in recent editions and is expected to continue in 2026. It uses the Jakubák stage and the Jakubské náměstí space as a vehicle for cultural exchange through performance, in a city that has welcomed one of the largest concentrations of Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic since 2022.

Children's Programme and Family Accessibility

The Jakubák programme explicitly includes children's events and activities — making the festival one of the summer options that the whole family can attend together. The combination of free admission, an outdoor public square, food and drink vendors accessible around the periphery of the square, and programming that mixes adult concerts with family-friendly elements creates exactly the kind of summer evening out that Brno families return to year after year.

The square's physical layout supports this — Jakubské náměstí is broad enough that the audience can arrange itself in natural zones: closer to the stage for people who want the concert experience, further back for families with children who want space to move around, and around the perimeter for those whose interest is as much the atmosphere as the music.

Practical Information for Visitors

Jakubák Open Air 2026 is completely free of charge. No tickets, no advance registration, no gate. Arrive, find a spot, enjoy.

Concert start times: 20:00 on most programme evenings (exceptions noted when applicable)

Season duration: June 3 through end of September 2026

Food and drink: Multiple food stalls and vendors operate in and around Jakubské náměstí during festival evenings. The surrounding streets — particularly Jakubská and the bars and restaurants on Dominikánské náměstí — provide an excellent pre- or post-concert options. Czech beer, Moravian wine, and the full range of Central European snack food are all within a two-minute walk.

Getting to Jakubské náměstí:

• The square is in the heart of Brno's historic city center, approximately 5–7 minutes on foot from Náměstí Svobody (Freedom Square — the city's main civic hub)
• From Brno hlavní nádraží (main railway station): approximately 15 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by tram (any central tram to "Šilingovo náměstí" or "Česká" stop)
• Essentially every tram line serving the city center passes within a 5-minute walk of the square
• By car: The historic center is largely pedestrianised; parking garages at Parkovací dům Janáčkovo divadlo or Olympia are the most practical options; on foot from either is under 15 minutes

Programme updates: Follow @jakubak_fest on Instagram and facebook.com/jakubakfest for programme announcements. The full 2026 programme is published at jakubak.cz as dates are confirmed.

Brno in Summer: A City at Its Best

The Jakubák Open Air season from June through September coincides with Brno at its most enjoyable. The city's parks are full, the outdoor café terraces run late into the evening, and the medieval center — which can feel slightly formal in winter — opens up and relaxes in the summer heat.

The broader 2026 summer calendar for visitors includes:

• Řečkovický CRAFTBEER Festival — June 5–6 at the Old Řečkovice Brewery Amphitheatre
• ObrFest — June 12–14 in Obřany by the Svitava river
• Hollywood Undead at Sono Centrum — June 15
• Bryan Adams Bare Bones at the Janáček Theatre — June 22
• Maraton hudby Brno — August, with Jakubák as a central venue
• Janáček Brno International Festival — October 13 to November 17 (10th edition)

A June or July visit can combine all of these within a single trip — and every Jakubák evening in between is free, in one of the most beautiful squares in Central Europe.

The square has been here since the 13th century. Jakubák has been activating it every summer for years. The 2026 season opens on June 3, and from that first evening until the end of September, Jakubské náměstí belongs to Brno's summer again. Free of charge, every time.

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