Bal de l'Amour returns to Bastille on 15 May 2026
The Bal de l'Amour 2026 will return to the bastille on vendredi 15 mai 2026, with the free public event set to begin at 18h on the place de la Bastille in Paris. The fourth edition again turns one of the city’s busiest symbolic squares into a large dance floor, this time with the Mairie de Paris presenting the Prix international LGBTQIA+ 2026.
Free entry changes the scale of the event. Instead of a ticketed crowd, the city is opening the program to anyone who can get to the square, and the setting places the celebration in full public view on the eve of the Journée mondiale contre l’homophobie, la transphobie et la biphobie.
Paris place de la Bastille
The move back to the place de la Bastille gives the 2026 edition a different footprint from the City of Paris’s grand Bal de l'Amour in 2023, which took place on the parvis de l’Hôtel de Ville. The change of site matters operationally: Bastille is being used as a large open-air dance floor, not as a conventional indoor or seated venue.
The event is built around love, equality, and LGBTQIA+ artistic and musical culture. That is the basic program line, but the public format is the bigger story for anyone planning to attend: the city is making the event accessible without admission barriers, and it is placing the celebration in one of Paris’s most visible public spaces.
Prix international LGBTQIA+ 2026
The Mairie de Paris will also present the Prix international LGBTQIA+ 2026 at the event, adding an official civic element to a night framed as celebration rather than ceremony. The participation of the Théâtre du Châtelet gives the program an institutional anchor inside an otherwise open public gathering.
This is the fourth edition of the Bal de l'Amour, which makes the 2026 return less like a one-off party than a recurring civic event that the city is continuing to build. The clearest practical takeaway is simple: anyone planning for Friday evening should head to the place de la Bastille, with the program starting at 18h and no admission price standing in the way.
