The Copenhagen Jazz Festival, held every year in early July, is one of the largest jazz festivals in Europe — around 1,500 concerts over ten days, spread across more than 130 venues. About half of them are free: outdoor stages, courtyards, bars, and squares throughout the city. The paying concerts are in dedicated venues from intimate clubs to outdoor stages holding thousands.
The festival transforms the city: jazz pours out of windows, squares become improvised stages, and the normally reserved Copenhageners loosen up noticeably. Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Oscar Peterson all played here in its earlier decades; the modern programme mixes established international names with Danish jazz, which is consistently excellent. Even if you have no particular interest in jazz, visiting during the festival changes the character of the city entirely.