The annual summer festival in Chania, Crete showcases all kinds of traditional Cretan theatre and music, but international bands will rock the festival into life on 11th July, when rock band Scorpians headline an outdoor concert in the town.

Back in the 1980's Scorpians ventured from their native Germany to fill concert venues all over the world and were one of the biggest rock bands of their era. Things have moved on but the band are still very popular and on 11th July will be filling the Municipal Stadium of Perivolia in Crete as they kick off the annual Creta Festival.

Scorpians were founded back in 1965 by Rudolf Schenker, now aged 60, who still leads the band alongside vocalist Klaus Meine who joined in 1970. Amazingly for a rock band that has been performing for almost 45 years they are still very active, playing concerts all over Europe and still releasing new material.

Playing alongside Scorpians in Crete will be the Greek power metal band Firewind, American heavy metal band Dokken and Prassein Aloga, another Greek hard rock band with blues and soul influences. The bands will play for a total of 5 hours at the concert, which starts at 3:00 in the afternoon. Extra buses will be laid on to transport guests to and from the centre of Chania to the stadium.

The Chania Festival continues over the rest of the summer until August, with further musical events in addition to theatre performances, dancing, art exhibitions and even chess tournaments where visitors can challenge the local masters.