When it comes to planning your annual festival calendars year after year – after awhile – they all begin to look the same. One can only take so many beer gardens, campgrounds, and lasers before you find yourself yearning for a different kind of festival experience. These 10 arts and cultural festivals are just the thing to break out of your festival rut and teach you a thing or two in the process.

WOMADelaide, Adelaide, Australia (March 11-14, 2016)

Founding Genesis band member and solo artist Peter Gabriel, along with Thomas Brooman and Bob Hooton, conceived The World of Music, Arts, and Dance (WOMAD) in 1980 and finally brought it to life in 1982 at the tiny Somerset town of Shepton Mallet. The founders had a clear vision, bringing up-and-coming UK acts together with lesser-known (or entirely unknown to Westerners) talent from around the world. The festival, which focuses on multiculturalism through world music and arts, began its WOMADelaide iteration in 1992, has seen more than 300 groups from 80 countries perform on its stages, and a the special WOMADelaide Foundation was set up as a non-profit body to present the festival and special projects for remote Indigenous arts communities in Australia. Off stage, artists hold classes and meet ups for any interested in learning more about indigenous instruments, musical styles, and performance techniques.

Luminato Festival, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (June 10-26, 2016)

For 10 days in June, hundreds of Toronto’s spaces — theaters, parks and less conventional spots — fill with performing, visual, literary and culinary arts presentations. A hybrid of populist street fair and highbrow contemporary art, the festival seeks out creative innovators and the city welcomes them; like Bumbershoot on steroids, Luminato draws about 800,000 attendees from all over the world for free and ticketed events exemplifying the festival’s three pillars: collaboration, accessibility and diversity. Dance, music, film, theater, book readings, magic shows, food and other sense-stimulating offerings are in the works for 2016, along with a visual-art project that will turn the city into a giant outdoor gallery. This is no mere arts and crafts fair, that’s for sure. The first year – 2007 – the city’s harbor-front skyline filled with light powered by viewers’ heartbeats, while Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen debuted their theatrical collaboration Book of Longing.

World-premiere performances of plays, operas, films, major art commissions and installations and tributes to legends occur every year. After all, this festival is about enlightenment, and a greater understanding of our shared humanity through exposure to myriad forms of art and culture.

World Bodypainting Festival, Portschach, Austria (June 27-July 3, 2016)

Created in the south of Austria 1998, this is one of the most kaleidoscopically weird fests around – and has since helped redefine the genre of body-painting into the art-form it is today. The World Bodypainting Festival hosts artists and models from over 40 different countries, all of whom do their best to shock and entertain visitors in the following categories: Brush/Sponge, Airbrush, Creative Make-up, Special-effects Make-up, Face Painting and the UV Award. Themes such as Artificial Intelligence are selected each year to help with the judging process.

Of course, the human body has been used as a canvas by people and from all across the world for thousands of years. From make-up to tattoos, basically every culture in history has painted and adorned themselves in some form of celebration or ritual. At this festival, creating living breathing art takes patience, skill and a great deal of concentration. At the end of each day the human art-forms parade down the catwalk while photographers jostle for position in order to capture the perfect shot. There is big money at stake for the top three photos and award-winning artists.

Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (July 13-31, 2016)

As comedy becomes more of a cultural force with each passing year, billions of dollars are made on the art form via TV shows, films, books, and shows. Enter Montréal's Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, the largest comedy festival in the world which has been making people laugh for two straight weeks every year for 34 years. These days, an estimated two million people travel to Québec attend the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. 2015's event saw an average of 300,000 tickets sold for the festival’s 1,600 performances, which took over streets, plazas, and traditional venues across the city. Comedians perform everywhere from cozy haunts like Theatré Sainte-Catherine to the enormous Théâtre Maisonneuve. The range of free and ticketed events includes street art performances, theater productions, stand-up monologues, and posh galas, and the festival itself has featured names like  Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Neil Patrick Harris, Trevor Noah, Mike Meyers, Patton Oswalt, John Cleese, Jerry Springer, Tina Fey, and Jon Stewart, as well as the casts of animated comedic favorites like South Park and The Simpsons.

Comic-Con International, San Diego, California (July 21-24, 2016)

Some may dismiss Comic-Con International as a geekfest, but the true fans know that it’s four days of fun when they can meet industry stars and play in a fantasy land, all in downtown San Diego. Packed with events from autograph signings to film screenings to costume competitions (and many people show up in costume), this celebration of pop culture and arts is a behemoth convention. Comic-Con International has roots that go back longer than you may think. The convention began in 1970 as a “minicon” of one day, when a group of comics, movie and science fiction fans—plus about 100 attendees—formed the first comic book convention in Southern California. It’s been held at the San Diego Convention Center since 1991, and attracts comics creators; science fiction and fantasy authors and actors; film and TV directors, producers and writers. The convention’s massive programming schedule tops 600 separate events, featuring hands-on workshops, educational and academic programming, anime and film screenings, video games, an Autograph Arena, Portfolio Reviews, an Art Show, a Masquerade costume competition, and the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Yep, all in four days.

Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (September 8-18, 2016)

With 100+ more films shown than Cannes and a ton less pretentious than that same festival, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has been a beacon of the arts in the Great White North for 40 years, and comes to life during a dizzying array of top-tier parties, premieres, and panels. Toronto's soiree is a huge affair in the film biz. Industry people arrive from around the globe. More than 300 movies screen. Many have star power, but more are low-budget films from independent makers in, say, Laos or Qatar or Morocco. Buyers scope out the wares, looking for the next blockbuster. Producers work the circuit, hoping to make a sale. Everyone networks, and deals are struck. What's $10 million or so between new friends?

Lake Of Stars, Lake Malawi, Malawi (September 30-October 2, 2016)

This local treasure of a festival launched in 2004 on the shores of one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, Lake Malawi. While the nation of Malawi is often referred to as the "Warm Heart of Africa," it’s also the 13th poorest country in the world, according to The Guardian. That’s why festival founder Will Jameson wants Lake of Stars to, in addition to it being a top-notch music festival, serve as a community development project that benefits the tourism industry. Today, the official mission of Lake of Stars Festival is “to work in the fields of the arts, tourism and development to provide entertainment whilst developing people and places.”  It began with around 700 attendees and has since grown to amass crowds of nearly 4,000 people. Attendees travel from more than 30 countries each year to see music, poetry readings, TEDx-style talks, workshops, acrobatics, theater performances, and film screenings, thus generating an estimated $1.7 million for the Malawian economy. Additionally, the festival itself donates a portion of ticket sales revenue to worthy causes like relief efforts from the recent floods.

Berlin Festival of Lights, Berlin, Germany (October 2016)

Turns out projection mapping has some pretty incredible uses outside of the traditional music festival setting, as proven by the incredible, annual Berlin Festival of Lights each October. The 11-year-old festival reimagines the city's historical landmarks such as the Berlin Cathedral, the U.S. Embassy, the Brandenburg Gate, and Berlin City Palace as monumental light sculptures using projection mapping and dazzling, colorful lights. A team of international artists installs smaller light sculptures – like angel wings and massive playing cards – around the city's public spaces, including works by the festival's official ambassador, France's Thierry Noi, the German-Israeli OGE Creative Group, and SINOCA from Spain. The entire heart of the city feels like a stage for the festival's light shows, which attract hundreds of thousands to visitors to city each year. Building facades become pianos, kaleidoscopic fractal designs, and dizzying weather patterns, all with the vibrant colors seen in paintings or other traditional forms of street art. Using a keen eye for malleable visuals, video projectors and software like Resolume Arena or MadMapper, artists at the Berlin Festival of Lights turn anything and everything into an interactive 3D surface.

Cannabis Cup, Negril, Jamaica (November 2016)

The World Cannabis Cup, hosted by Rastafari Rootzfest, was held in Long Bay Beach Park set along the popular Seven Mile Beach in Negril, Jamaica for the first time ever in 2015. This seemingly natural pairing only came to life after the World Cannabis Cup's original home in Amsterdam, Netherlands was abandoned after 27 years due to persistent legal troubles. When it moved to Jamaica in 2015, it was a momentous occasion for the Rastafari religion and world ganja culture alike. Flanked by white sands and the turquoise seas, attendees get a hefty dose of Jamaican culture through both weed strains from Jamaican growers; through local artisans and chefs, who sell everything from fresh-cut sugar cane to art and hemp wine to jewelry and other trinkets; and through seminars and panels highlighting the deep roots and livity of the Rastafarian faith, as well as the breathtaking developments within the worldwide cannabis industry. And that's not even counting the music; hosted by Rastafari Rootzfest, the Cannabis Cup features nightly reggae concerts on the beach with homegrown Jamaican Rastafari artists.

Mevlana Whirling Dervishes, Konya, Turkey (December 10-17, 2016)

Watching the Whirling Dervishes (in top form above) will change you in a way you’d never expect. The 10-day festival that celebrates them is known as the Mevlana Whirling Dervishes and is held in wintery Konya, Turkey. It's based on the teachings and practices of the 13th-century poet Rumi; Rumi believe in whirling as a method to achieve divine harmony. The festival sees the Whirling Dervishes (also known as the Mevlevi Order) in flowing white robes perform smooth, elegant, trancelike dances, morphing into a collective visual symphony in the Mevlâna Cultural Center, which fits nearly 2,000 people and was built primarily for whirling ceremonies. Enhanced by primal grooves and 360-degree projections, the moment when their arms, folded across their breasts, raise to the sky — the right arm facing up to God and the left arm turned down to the earth—will give you a contact high more profound than any you'll find on the dance floor.