Tempelhofer Feld's Annual Event Calendar: A Family Guide

Free, Year-Round, and Bigger Than Monaco

Tempelhofer Feld is Berlin’s former city airport, decommissioned in 2008 and reopened to the public in 2010 as one of the largest inner-city open spaces in the world: 355 hectares of former runways, taxiways, and grassland, roughly the footprint of the entire state of Monaco. Entry has always been free, and it stays that way for every day of the year, including the busiest festival dates on this page. What actually changes throughout the year is less about access and more about what’s happening on any given weekend, and that calendar is worth knowing before you plan a visit.

This guide covers both halves of that picture for families: the confirmed 2026 annual events worth building a day trip around, and the daily, free-use rules, covering picnicking, barbecuing, dogs, cycling, and kite flying, that shape an ordinary Tuesday afternoon on the field far more often than any single festival does.

Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels

The 2026 Annual Event Calendar

A few of these deserve more context than a table row can hold.

The Großer Frühlingsrummel opens the year’s calendar with a genuinely old-fashioned funfair: over 85 attractions on the field’s central fairground, open Wednesday through Sunday from late March into early May, with fireworks among the draws. Entry to the grounds is free; you pay per ride, same as any German Rummel.

VELOBerlin and the Airfield Race share the same April weekend by design. VELOBerlin is a bicycle expo and festival that in recent years has drawn more than 12,000 visitors and 300-plus exhibitors, while the Airfield Race, organized by the Berliner Radsport Verband, turns the old taxiway into a racing circuit for a criterium and road-race program spanning club riders up to elite competitors. Both are explicitly positioned as a family weekend, not a spectator-only motorsport event, and admission is free.

The Malarathon, on April 26, is a charity run for malaria prevention organized by the Hope Foundation as part of Malaria Week Berlin. Adults can run 3, 5, or 10 kilometers, but the detail worth knowing for families is the separate 500-meter Bambini course built specifically for young children, starting just before the main race at 10 am from the Paradestraße entrance. Entry is EUR 15, and children under 10 run free.

The Hankook Berlin E-Prix, May 2-3, is the one weekend where “family day at the field” and “the calendar” pull in different directions. Formula E builds a temporary street circuit on the taxiways close to the historic terminal building, and it is a ticketed motorsport event, not a free family outing. What’s worth knowing, though: reporting on the race specifically notes that the green meadow areas of Tempelhofer Feld remain largely untouched by the circuit, so a regular visit, away from the track and fan zones, is still realistically possible that weekend. Parking is limited either way, and organizers recommend public transport.

The Luftschloss open-air theatre, running mid-May to mid-September, is arguably the most consistently family-relevant entry on this list precisely because it isn’t a single date. The roughly 350-seat open-air amphitheater at the field’s West entrance runs a season of theatre, concerts, comedy, and dance, and its children’s and family programming, staged by ATZE Musiktheater with productions like Das NEINhorn and Das Farbenmonster, gives families many chances across the summer to catch a show rather than one fixed weekend to plan around.

The Berlin Circus Festival, now in its 12th edition (August 5-16), brings contemporary circus from Germany and abroad into three tents and an open-air stage, with a particular focus on Catalan circus in the 2026 program. Tickets run EUR 23.50 standard, EUR 18 reduced, and just EUR 13 for children up to 12, making it one of the more affordably family-priced ticketed events on the field.

The TFELD Festival, August 22, is worth flagging mainly so families don’t accidentally plan around it expecting something kid-friendly. It’s an adult-oriented electronic and hip-hop music festival across four stages, drawing up to 25,000 visitors, with tickets starting at EUR 69 and climbing daily. If you’re a regular field visitor rather than a festival-goer, treat this date the way you’d treat the E-Prix weekend: expect a fenced festival footprint and heavier crowds near the terminal, with the wider meadow still usable.

The Festival der Riesendrachen, September 12, closes out the season as the field’s clearest single family event. Now in its 13th edition, it runs a full day (11 am-8 pm) at the West entrance with free admission, no registration required. International kite pilots fly giant kites up to 50 meters, but the program is built around family participation: kids and adults alike can fly their own kites, join craft activities and games, and take in live music and food alongside the professional display.

Beyond these headline dates, the field also hosts a rolling program of smaller, recurring activity: guided nature walks and ecology tours through the field’s Naturerleben program run through much of the year, and Berlin’s citywide Stadtradeln cycling campaign, which runs in the May-to-June window annually, includes teams tied to the field logging everyday cycling kilometers for climate awareness. Because exact dates for these smaller programs shift week to week, the official German-language event calendar is the most reliable place to check what’s on close to your visit.

The Rules That Matter Every Other Day of the Year

Festivals aside, most family visits to Tempelhofer Feld happen on an ordinary day with no event at all, and the field’s everyday rules are worth knowing in more detail than “it’s a big park.”

Admission is free at every entrance, of which there are six across the field’s four sides (the main ones being Tempelhofer Damm and Paradestraße to the west, Columbiadamm to the north, and Oderstraße/Herrfurthstraße and Oderstraße/Crashgate to the east). After closing time the gates lock for entry, but five of them, Tempelhofer Damm, Columbiadamm, Oderstraße/Herrfurthstraße, Oderstraße/Crashgate, and Leinestraße, stay open as one-way revolving turnstiles so you can still leave.

Picnicking has no specific restriction: bring your own food, or buy from the kiosks and vendors scattered around the field’s perimeter and events. Barbecuing is a different matter, allowed only in three designated grill areas near the Tempelhofer Damm, Oderstraße, and Columbiadamm entrances. Bring your own barbecue, but it needs legs at least 25 centimeters high so it doesn’t scorch the grass; footless disposable barbecues and gas grills are both banned, as are open ground fires, and you can’t burn branches, twigs, or wood debris gathered on-site. Hot ash and coals go into dedicated metal containers at each grill site rather than regular bins. Worth flagging for 2026 specifically: Grün Berlin, which manages the field, imposed a temporary ban across all three grill areas from June 27, 2026 due to dry conditions, while confirming the field stayed open and picnicking was unaffected. Rules like this reappear in any dry summer, so a quick check of the official page before a planned barbecue is worth the minute it takes.

Dogs are welcome but must stay leashed everywhere on the field except three fenced-off, off-leash exercise areas marked on the official park map, a rule aimed at protecting both wildlife and other visitors. The one area that’s off-limits to dogs even on a leash is the Tempelschlucht nature-experience area at the field’s south-eastern entrance, reserved specifically for children (more on that below).

Cycling, skating, and kite flying all happen mainly on the paved loop that traces the field’s old taxiway, a route with no motor traffic and enough width to comfortably share. The field’s usage rules are explicit on priority: pedestrians and slow-moving visitors always have the right of way, and anyone doing a faster-moving activity, cycling, skating, or similar, is obliged to show extra consideration for everyone else on the path. Kite flying is common and genuinely well suited to the open terrain, and a specific section of the eastern runway is additionally set aside for kitesurfing (kite-powered board and buggy sports), separate from casual family kite flying, which tends to happen across the wider open meadow away from the busiest paths.

Family-Friendly Corners Worth Knowing

Two spots on the field are worth building a visit around even outside the event calendar.

Tempelschlucht, at the south-eastern entrance (Oderstraße/Crashgate), is a roughly one-hectare nature-experience area opened in 2022, purpose-built for young children. Rather than fixed playground equipment, it offers modeled hills, a hand-pump water feature feeding a small stream channel, sand and clay pits for open-ended mud play, and large boulders for climbing and new views across the field. It’s free, publicly accessible during the field’s normal hours, and, as noted above, dog-free, which keeps it calmer for toddlers and younger kids exploring at their own pace.

The skate plaza, completed in 2013, and an adjoining BMX area sit on part of the old paved runway and draw skateboarders, BMX riders, and inline skaters; it’s a better fit for older kids and teens than young children, but worth knowing about if your family includes a rider.

Getting There

• U6 Paradestraße: closest to the West entrance, roughly a 5-minute walk, and the meeting point for several of the events above, including the Malarathon start.
• S+U Tempelhof: served by the U6 and the S41, S42, S45, and S46 lines, close to the West and South entrances.
• U7 or bus routes to Columbiadamm: for the North entrance.
• U8 to Boddinstraße or Leinestraße: for the East entrances, including the Oderstraße/Crashgate entrance nearest Tempelschlucht.

Parking is limited across the field, and on any of the bigger event dates above, organizers consistently recommend public transport over driving.

Step by Step: Planning a Family Visit

1. Check the official German-language event calendar close to your visit date, since smaller recurring programs (nature walks, workshops) shift week to week beyond the confirmed annual events on this page.
2. If you’re aiming for a specific event, note whether it’s genuinely free and family-oriented (the Kite Festival, VELOBerlin/Airfield Race, and the Malarathon’s Bambini course all qualify) or ticketed and adult-oriented (E-Prix, TFELD, and to a lesser extent the Circus Festival), and plan expectations accordingly.
3. Bring your own barbecue if you want to grill, with legs at least 25 centimeters high, and check the official barbecue-rules page beforehand in case of a temporary dry-weather ban.
4. Keep dogs leashed outside the three marked off-leash areas, and skip the Tempelschlucht area entirely if you have a dog with you.
5. Stick to the pedestrian side of the paved loop with young children, since cyclists, skaters, and kitesurfers share the same surface and have to give way to pedestrians, not the other way around.
6. Head for Tempelschlucht at the Oderstraße/Crashgate entrance if your goal is simply somewhere for young children to dig, climb, and splash without a formal itinerary.

Compliance Note

This page reflects publicly available information about Tempelhofer Feld’s 2026 event calendar and everyday usage rules as of mid-2026, drawn from the official Tempelhofer Feld and Flughafen Tempelhof (THF Berlin) websites, the official Berlin Circus Festival and TFELD Festival event pages, the Berliner Radsport Verband’s official announcements on the Airfield Race and VELOBerlin, the official Malarathon 2026 event listing, e-Formel.de’s visitor information on the Hankook Berlin E-Prix, and Campus Stadtnatur’s official description of the Tempelschlucht nature-experience area. Event dates, ticket prices, and temporary rules such as dry-weather barbecue bans can change; confirm current details on the official Tempelhofer Feld event calendar and each event’s own page before visiting.