Since 1996 The Thomas Mann Festival, which is taking place in 2018, surely deserves to be called the most important cultural event of the Seaside and one of the most important summer events in all of Lithuania. It is held annually on July 16. a week, because it was on that day that Thomas Mann and his family first came to spend the summer in their idyllic summer house. The rich program of the festival includes exhibitions, films, discussions, lectures and book presentations. The pride of the festival is the music program, where premieres of works take place every year and the most talented performers from Lithuania and abroad appear.