The Festival in Tallinn: Schedule Announced for a Landmark Return

The Festival Series and The Hendon Mob Championship are heading back to Tallinn — and this time, it is coming back bigger than ever.

The full schedule has been announced for The Festival Series Tallinn 2026, running from November 20–29 at Olympic Park Casino Tallinn. With more than 70 events spread across ten days, the Tallinn return is set to be one of the biggest and most varied The Festival Series stops to date.

It has been four years since The Festival last hosted a full series in the Estonian capital. The 2022 edition was only the second full Festival Series in the tour’s history, making Tallinn a particularly important part of The Festival story. Now, after the more compact Festival Weekend returned to the city earlier in 2026, the full series is finally back.

And there is a strong argument that Tallinn is about as close to a home game as The Festival gets.

Back Where It All Began

Tallinn has long been intertwined with The Festival. Its Nordic connections, its importance to the early growth of the series and, of course, the presence of The Festival’s founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk have made the city a familiar destination for Festival regulars.

The 2026 return also represents a significant milestone for The Hendon Mob Championship (THMC). THMC will return to Tallinn, marking the first THMC event in the city since The Hendon Mob partnered with Kings of Tallinn in 2020.

That gives this year’s schedule an extra connection to poker history in the Estonian capital, while adding another championship event to an already packed programme. The numbers alone demonstrate how much the series has grown. The 2026 schedule contains 70+ events, roughly double the number offered at the last full Festival Series in Tallinn in 2022.

The Hendon Mob Championship Tallinn

The Hendon Mob Championship helps kick off the festival on Day 1 with the first of three starting flights beginning at 17:00 on Friday afternoon. THMC Tallinn features a €350 buy-in and a format designed to attract recreational players and seasoned tournament grinders alike. 

Players start with 30,000 chips and play 30-minute levels on Day 1A and B, with Day 1C featuring a turbo structure. Re-entries are unlimited for the first 14 levels before all of the Day 2 qualifiers return on Sunday, November 22nd at 15:00. 

There is a Freebuy Satellite to The Hendon Mob Championship Day 1A at 12:00 on Friday that is €0 to enter and carries €20 re-entries and a €20 add-on.

2026 THMC Winners to be Awarded South African Millions Package

The Hendon Mob and our South African partners are offering all 2026 THMC Main Event winners a package to the THMC SA Millions, taking place later this year.

The SA Poker Open and THMC SA Millions 2026 package is worth approximately €2,500. It includes seven nights of accommodation, transfers to the venue, a €500 travel allowance, and a THMC SA Millions ticket worth R9,000.

Something for Every Poker Player

As always with The Festival, this isn’t a schedule built exclusively around No-Limit Hold’em.

The €555 Festival NLH Main Event sits at the heart of the poker programme, alongside the €350 THMC, but players will also find a huge selection of mixed games and alternative formats.

The schedule includes a Mixed Games Main Event – TORSES, 8-Game and 10-Game tournaments, Dealers Choice, OFC Pineapple, Big O, Crazy Pineapple, PLO, Sviten Special and a variety of Bomb Pot formats. There are also High Rollers in PLO, NLH, OFC and 10-Game.

There are plenty of unique events too, including a Chicago European Championship, the return of the Sviten Special World Record Attempt, and formats such as PLO5 Flip, NLH Total Knock Out and Thrilleri.

The Sviten Special record currently stands at 131 entries, meaning Tallinn could provide another opportunity for Festival players to put their names into the record books.

The Festival Is Gamifying Hold’em

One of the most interesting developments is what The Festival is doing with its Hold’em programme. While mixed games remain central to the Festival’s identity, the organizers have increasingly looked for ways to make the world’s most popular poker variant more inventive.

Tallinn continues that experiment. Alongside the more traditional freezeouts, rebuys, knockouts and multi-day tournaments, the schedule introduces formats including NLH 7-2 Special (with INES rules), NLH Total Knock Out and NLH Brunch. The idea is simple: take Hold’em and add another layer.

The Festival has described this approach as “gamifying” Hold’em, and Tallinn looks set to be one of the best examples yet of that philosophy in action.

For players who normally stick to NLH, it offers a chance to experience something different without necessarily learning an entirely new poker variant.

More Than Poker

Of course, calling The Festival a poker series only tells part of the story.

The Tallinn schedule also brings back the wider Festival concept, with casino and sports betting competitions sitting alongside the poker action.

Players can take part in the Slots Championship, Blackjack Championship and Sportsbook Championship, while the Cash Game Challenge, Franke’s Flip Flops and other Festival favourites add yet more ways to get involved away from the tournament tables.

That variety is one of the things that separates The Festival from a conventional poker series. A player can play a mixed-game tournament in the afternoon, jump into a Hold’em event later, take part in a cash-game challenge and still have an evening of casino or social action ahead.

It is deliberately designed to be a festival rather than simply a collection of poker tournaments.

Ten Days in Tallinn

The 2026 edition runs from Friday, November 20 through Sunday, November 29, giving players ten days of action at Olympic Park Casino Tallinn. For The Festival, the timing is also significant: Tallinn is the final Festival Series stop of 2026.

That gives the event a natural end-of-season feel, but the destination itself is also important. After several years away from a full Series, The Festival is returning to one of the cities most closely associated with its identity.

The last full Tallinn Series came in 2022. Four years later, the return is substantially larger, with more than twice as many events and a schedule that reflects how much The Festival concept has evolved since those early editions.

With a €555 Main Event, a €350 THMC, 70+ events, mixed games, innovative Hold’em formats, championships across poker and casino games, and ten days of action, Tallinn looks set to provide a fitting finale to The Festival’s 2026 calendar.

The Festival is coming home — and it is bringing a very big schedule with it.