Steam's themed festivals: what they are and how to get in

Every game gets one Steam Next Fest. Themed fests are the opposite. Between October 2026 and June 2027 Valve has announced thirteen of them, from Steam Scream V to Mountaineering Fest, and a game can enter every one it genuinely fits. For a game that has already spent its Next Fest, they are the most regular way back onto Steam's front page before launch, and for a released game they are a reason to run a discount with Steam's spotlight on it.

They are smaller than Next Fest and narrower: a fest's audience came for one genre or theme. That is the point. A player browsing Rhythm Fest wants rhythm games, so a rhythm game there is shown to exactly the players most likely to wishlist it.

From Valve's Upcoming Steam Events page, read on 18 October 2026. Each fest starts and ends at 10 a.m. Pacific.

Themed fests run on invitation. Valve emails the developers of games it judges eligible, and it judges eligibility from two things: the game's store tags, and how the store page describes and presents the game. Its rule is that a game must be primarily about the theme. A strategy game with a racing minigame is not a Racing Fest game.

Three consequences follow:

• Your tags are your application. Tags that are true and match the theme get you invited; tags chosen to chase a popular fest do not, and they hurt the page everywhere else.
• You can miss an invitation for a dull reason. Invitations go to Steamworks users who have Receive Steamworks communications turned on. Check that setting, and your Steam email, before the fests you care about.
• There is an appeal. If you believe the game fits and it was not invited, Valve's appeals process is at the bottom of the event's registration page.

1. Watch for the invitation, usually six weeks or more before the fest.
2. Tick the checkbox on the event's registration page in Steamworks. That is the whole registration.
3. Enter the discount, if the game is released, in Discount Management. Valve recommends the event's official discount, which usually runs one week, over a custom one, because the official discount is what guarantees visibility in the event.
4. Opt in to marketing materials if you want a chance at Valve's trailer for the fest. That needs registration, a discount and at least one public trailer on the store page; unreleased, free-to-play and demo titles are generally not eligible for it.
5. Meet the deadlines. The discount and marketing opt-in deadlines are typically about six weeks before the fest. Each event's Important Dates section has the exact ones.

To withdraw, untick the checkbox at the bottom of the registration page.

A fest's sale page is split into top-level sections (Discounted, Free to Play, Demos, Upcoming, VR) and theme-specific sub-sections, and a game can appear in several. Valve sorts within sections by factors such as player interest and popularity and says plainly that it cannot guarantee any position.

• An unreleased game appears in Upcoming, and in Demos if it has one. Demo registration uses the base game's store page, so the base game's tags decide where the demo shows. The aim is wishlists.
• A released game appears in Discounted if it has a discount entered, which is where Valve gives the most prominent placement. The aim is sales, and a discount of 20% or more also emails everyone who has the game on their wishlist.
• A free-to-play game gets its own section.

Steam Playtests are not included in themed fests, and broadcasts are generally not featured on the sale page, though you can still stream on your own store page.

Valve sets no cap on how many themed fests a game can join. The limit is the discount rules, and themed fests get no exemption from them: only the four seasonal sales do.

• A product cannot be discounted for 30 days after release, so a game released less than 30 days before a fest can enter it but cannot discount in it.
• Discounts must be at least 30 days apart, so a released game can discount in at most one fest in any 30-day window. Rhythm Fest and a weeklong deal two weeks earlier cannot both carry a discount.
• A price increase in any currency blocks discounts for 30 days.

So a released game should pick its fests by the calendar: the one that fits best in each month, with the discount aimed at it. Our Steam sale calendar lays the fests beside the seasonal sales.

Games in a fest usually get an event banner on their store page during it. When events overlap, Valve shows one banner by priority: a franchise sale first, then a developer or publisher sale, then a third-party sale, then a Steam themed sale. Within the same kind, the event published first wins. A themed fest is the lowest priority, so if you run your own developer sale on the same dates, players see your sale's banner, not the fest's.

Beside Valve's own fests, independent organisers run festivals on Steam: a curator, a publisher or a media outlet builds a sale page around a theme and invites games to apply through its own form. They are smaller than Valve's fests but often more focused, many take Coming Soon games and demos, and each sets its own deadline and rules. On a store page, a third-party sale's banner ranks above a Steam themed fest's.

• Enter only fests the game is about. A loose fit converts badly and is not what Valve's eligibility rule allows anyway.
• Have the demo live before the fest starts, if the game is unreleased, and post an event on the store page announcing it.
• Aim the discount. For a released game, keep the month's discount for the fest that fits best, and make it 20% or more so wishlisters are emailed.
• Show the theme first. The capsule and first screenshot should say rhythm game to a Rhythm Fest browser at a glance.
• Read the result. Compare wishlists and sales in the fest week with the week before, by source in the traffic breakdown, and keep the fests that paid.

Flockbay is a free AI game builder on the official Godot engine. Its Steam page drafts the store copy and tags from the game you actually built, which is what Valve reads to invite you, and cuts capsules from a real frame of your game; the page exports as a .zip you upload in Steamworks yourself. Video studio cuts the trailer a fest's marketing opt-in asks for. Preparing the page by hand and its .zip are free; the drafting and Video studio are free in beta until 1 December 2026. Flockbay never submits anything to Steam: the registration and the discounts are yours.