What festivals or events are worth planning a trip around in Morocco?

Morocco's festival calendar is one of my favourite ways to deepen a trip, and as the designer who plans most of our food-and-culture journeys I am always nudging clients toward timing their visit around one. The crown jewel for many is the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in early June — a soul-stirring program of Sufi, gospel, Andalusian and global sacred music staged in the courtyards and palaces of the old imperial city. It draws a thoughtful, international crowd and turns Fes, already spellbinding, into something transcendent for a week.

If your taste runs more rhythmic, the Gnaoua World Music Festival in Essaouira, also in June, is electric — the hypnotic, trance-driven Gnawa traditions of Morocco's sub-Saharan heritage colliding with jazz and world musicians, much of it free and spilling through the breezy blue-and-white port town. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, the Marrakech International Film Festival lights up the Red City late in the year with screenings, stars and an unmistakable glamour. These three are the events I most often build itineraries around because they reward you whether or not you are a hardcore fan of the genre.

Then there are the rooted, traditional gatherings that feel like stepping into living heritage. The Rose Festival in El Kelaa M'Gouna (the Valley of Roses, usually May) celebrates the damask rose harvest with parades, music and the heady scent of rosewater. The Imilchil Marriage Festival high in the Middle Atlas is a centuries-old Amazigh betrothal gathering. The Tan-Tan Moussem in the south is a great desert assembly of nomadic tribes recognised by UNESCO. Smaller local moussems (saint-day festivals) pop up all over and, if you stumble into one, are an unscripted joy.

The most important dates, though, are the religious ones, because they shape the whole country regardless of festivals. Ramadan — the month of daytime fasting whose timing shifts about eleven days earlier each year on the Western calendar — changes the rhythm of everything: quieter days, magical communal evenings as the fast breaks at iftar, some reduced hours. It can be a beautiful or a tricky time to visit depending on your expectations. Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are major holidays when transport books out and many businesses close. My advice: decide whether you want the energy of a festival or the calm of shoulder season, check the moving Islamic dates for your year, and let us thread the timing together so the calendar works for you rather than against you.