The International Samba Festival is Coburg’s most famous festival, a cultural institution and known far beyond the historic city limits. What once started from a spontaneous idea and the love of samba music in the early 1990s is now a mega event. Up to 150,000 visitors from all over the world are flocking to Coburg this weekend to attend the world’s second largest samba festival after the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Thousands of international sambistas, capoeiristas and dancers create a state of emergency in the city center. The groups offer a colorful program and often play on different stages in turn until after midnight. A samba night takes place at the Kongresshaus Rosengarten. In 2011, the atmospheric samba festival in Coburg received the “Bavarian Export Award”, and in 2014 it was even awarded the Edison Carneiro Prize for the “best samba event outside Rio”.