Shiraz Arts and Culture Festival

Shiraz's arts and culture festival draws on the city's identity as Iran's historic center of poetry, gardens and performance, home to the tombs of Hafez and Saadi and once host to the internationally significant Shiraz Arts Festival of the late 1960s and 1970s. Programming blends traditional Persian music, poetry recitation and craft display across the city's gardens and historic squares.

Shiraz has held a distinct place in Persian cultural memory for centuries as the city of poets, gardens and wine, home to the tombs of Hafez and Saadi, two of the most widely read poets in the Persian-speaking world, both of which remain active gathering places where visitors recite verses and seek guidance through bibliomancy with Hafez's Divan.