The Philly Tango Festival is run by the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School.

The festival launched over Memorial Day weekend 2010 as a tango / humour festival. There were funny and serious workshops and performances, including the Philly premiere of “The Tango Cheeseballs,” and an amazing milonga with live music by Tanghetto.

We skipped 2011, and then held yearly festivals from 2012 through 2019. Almost every festival was held over Memorial Day weekend. Once or twice we had to use a different weekend due to a venue or artist conflict.

We tried out a range of venues, before finding our ideal home at the Lithuanian Music Hall. Click any of the photos below to go to the full photo album for that year’s festival.

Venue History & Photos
Click on any photo below to view the full album from that festival on flickr!

May 28-31, 2010: Philadelphia Argentine Tango School & 2424 Studios

May 25-28, 2012: Ruba Club

May 24-27, 2013: Ruba Club

May 23-26, 2014: Ruba Club

May 29-June 1, 2015: Christ Church Neighborhood House

May 20-23, 2016: Christ Church Neighborhood House

June 2-5, 2017: German Society of Philadelphia

May 25-28, 2018: Lithuanian Music Hall

May 24-27, 2019: Lithuanian Music Hall

The image directly above is from the 2019, at which we launched the Tipica Messiez Tango Orchestra as part of a sold-out event.

We had planned a blow-out celebration for our 10th anniversary festival, which would have taken place May 22-25, 2020, but was of course canceled due to Covid. We did, however, hold one of the largest online events to take place during the pandemic over that same weekend, the Virtual Tango Festival.

June 2-5, 2022

After two years without a festival due to the pandemic, we were thrilled to present our 10th festival (finally!) from June 2-5, 2022. This was our first thematic festival, celebrating the often-overlooked contributions to tango by women. It was an inspiring, beautiful and hopeful four days. Check out the video playlist above, and photos here:

May 26-29, 2023
In 2023, we held our second thematic festival, exploring the theme of IMPROVISATION in tango dance & music. It was just incredible.

Going forward, the festival will:

• Always take place on Memorial Day Weekend
• Always be organized around a central theme
• Always produce and present a new tango album