Looking to avoid big events on trip to Amsterdam, Lucerne, Salz. and Prague
 

Finally...we're on track to plan our next trip to Europe. The last was in 2011 and it's been too long!

Right now we're tentatively planning the following for 2016 (travel time is outside of these dates)
May 26-28 Amsterdam
May 30-1 Lucerne
June 3-6 Salzburg
June 8-10 Prague

I'm getting ready to start researching possible events that occur in those cities on those dates that could be a problem, but thought I'd throw this out to the great Fodors community also. Obviously this far out there are many things that simply aren't known. But are there any big events planned in those 4 cities on those dates that would make us want to avoid those places? The last thing I need is to find out the EU is holding an economic summit in a city we're planning to visit.

Lucerne is probably less of a problem as we'll be traveling around the region and not just being in Lucerne those days, so there's more flexibility.

Looking forward to having a new trip to make me spend waaay too much time on this forum.

Are you interested in the EXISTENCE of big events or the IMPACT of big events? The latter for some items, such as accommodation, can be accessed directly without any guessing. Just feed dates into www.booking.com and www.hrs.com,etc. I like the map view to get feeling of occupancy and the market prices. Do the same for the same days a week earlier and a week later. If you see a spike in price and plummeting availability, there is something that IMPACTS your stay. Even if there is a mega event going on, if they are locked up in a convention center, etc. at the time you want to visit something, there is less IMPACT on you.

Good points. I'm just trying to avoid event that would generally negatively impact the time in those cities...whether it's due to lack of hotel availability, large areas blocked off (festivals, major conferences, etc) or simply large increases of people which leads to longer lines at touristy destinations. I'll check out those sites you mentioned.

I know in my home town, when there are large conferences in the convention center it totally wipes out all the restaurants on that side of town. So during the day it's not so bad...but hotels and events are congested in the evenings.

If you look at the web site of the convention center in each city it will list major events. There are often congresses that the general public don;t know about that can wreak havoc with lodgings. (I did the meeting of European College of Neuropsychopharmacology several years and it brought between 20K and 25K psychiatrists from around the world and lodging prices often doubled at least. And the average person would never know they were there.)

Thanks NY...I'll give that a try.

A moveable holiday in May is Pfingsten (the 50th day of Easter, the birth of the church). In 2016, it falls on Sunday, May 15 and Monday, May 16. This the 3rd largest religious holiday in many German and Swiss states. It commonly means a 3-day weekend for workers (busy trains)and small town festivals, often celebrating heritage. Quite nice actually.