Shikara Festival, Dal Lake
The Shikara Festival is a two-day lake carnival on Dal Lake, typically held over a weekend in July or August. Shikara and dragon-boat races run through the day, ending in a parade of decorated boats. It is free to watch from the boulevard and needs no ticket or booking.
- July or August
- About 2 days
- Dal Lake, along the Boulevard
- Free to watch from the Boulevard
Typical window — this festival's dates move each year and are confirmed close to the time. We publish them here as soon as they are announced.
At a glance
- When it falls
- July or August
- How long it runs
- About 2 days
- Where
- Dal Lake, along the Boulevard
- Entry
- Free to watch from the Boulevard
- Where to watch
- Free, from the Boulevard footpath
- On the water
- Hire a shikara for the day
- Booking
- Not needed to attend
The window above is the pattern this festival reliably falls in, not an announced date. We add exact dates here once they are confirmed.
What happens at Shikara Festival
The Shikara Festival is a two-day carnival on Dal Lake, typically held over a weekend in July or August. Shikara and dragon-boat races run through the day and the festival closes with a parade of decorated boats along the Boulevard. It needs no ticket and no booking, which makes it the easiest festival in the valley to simply turn up to.
- Shikara races along the Boulevard stretch, heat by heat through the day.
- Dragon-boat racing, which is the loudest and most watchable part.
- A parade of decorated shikaras to close, usually late in the afternoon.
- Food stalls, music and canoe polo along the lakefront across both days.
How to attend Shikara Festival
Watch free from the Boulevard
The whole racing stretch runs alongside the Boulevard footpath, and the view from land is genuinely good. There is no ticket, no enclosure and no booking — you walk up and watch.
Or hire a shikara and watch from the water
A hired shikara puts you level with the racing and out of the crowd. Agree the hire rate before you get in, as you would any other day, and go out well before the heats start — the ghats are congested once the crowd builds.
Stay on the Boulevard or on a houseboat
Anywhere along the Boulevard or on a Dal Lake houseboat puts the festival on your doorstep. This is high summer, so Srinagar is busy regardless of the festival — book stays for the season, not for the event.
Afternoons are the show
Racing builds through the day and the decorated-boat parade closes it, so late afternoon into evening is the part worth planning around. Mornings on the lake are for the floating market instead, which is its own reason to be up early.
The story behind Shikara Festival
The boat the festival is named for
The shikara is the flat-bottomed, canopied wooden boat that has done everything on Dal Lake for centuries — ferrying people, carrying vegetables from the floating gardens, and serving as a shopfront. The festival is, at bottom, a celebration of the boat itself and the families who have rowed them for generations.
A young festival, an old craft
The organised festival is a recent addition to the calendar, created to give Dal Lake's boating community a public occasion and to draw visitors into the lake in high summer. The races and the boat-decorating tradition behind it are considerably older than the event.
Shikara Festival in photographs
Sartaj's on-ground tips
Born and raised in Kashmir · 20 years planning these trips
- The best free view is the Boulevard stretch near Nehru Park, not the crowded middle — the boats come past close and there is room to stand.
- If you hire a shikara for the day, settle the price before boarding and go out early. Rates and patience both change once the crowd arrives.
- Do the floating vegetable market at dawn on the same day. It is on the same lake, over by 7 AM, and almost nobody combines the two.
Before you go
Shikara Festival questions
Over a weekend in July or August, decided and announced by the tourism department each year. It runs for about two days. We publish the window rather than a fixed date because it moves within those two months from year to year.
No. Watching from the Boulevard is free and there is no enclosure or booking involved. The only thing you would pay for is hiring a shikara to watch from the water, which is a normal boat hire arranged on the day.
It is one of the better festival days in the valley for children — dragon-boat racing is loud and easy to follow, the decorated-boat parade is the visual payoff, and the whole thing happens along a walkable lakefront with food stalls. Nothing about it requires standing still for long.
Still have a question? Ask Sartaj directly — born and raised in Kashmir, 20 years of planning these trips.
Jul–Aug
Build the trip around Shikara Festival
Tell us the dates you can travel and we will tell you honestly whether they land in the window — and build the stays, cabs and days around it if they do.
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