Throughout the year, Switzerland hosts hundreds of festivals and sporting, cultural and political events. Roughly every 25 years, Switzerland holds a National Exhibition.

• The 1992 World Economic Forum in Davos provided the stage for the first-ever joint appearance by the then South African President, Frederik W. De Klerk, and Nelson Mandela.
• 25 world records have been set at the international athletics meeting “Weltklasse Zurich” since it began 80 years ago.
• The Paléo Festival in Nyon is the largest music festival in Europe. In 2016, 230,000 visitors attended 282 concerts, spread over a 84-hectare site.
• What sets the Locarno International Film Festival apart are its open-air evening screenings on the Piazza Grande, which regularly attract around 8,000 film buffs.
• In 2009, the Omega European Masters tournament in Crans-Montana became the first co-sanctioned event between the European Tour and the Asian Tour on European soil.
• One of the major attractions of the 2002 National Exhibition, Expo. 02, was a giant artificial cloud, equipped with 32,000 nozzles and fed by 88 water pumps.