Festival cities in crisis

01 AUG 2020: A documentary about the festival cities Bayreuth and Salzburg and their different ways of dealing with the Corona pandemic on 3sat, 1 August 2020 at 19:20.

Bayreuth and Salzburg – the two most famous festival cities in the world. Every year they outdo each other with artistic excellence and social glamour. The red carpet is a meeting place for celebrities from politics, business and culture from around the world. Until a virus called “SARS-Cov-19” plunged the world into a deep crisis in early 2020 – and with it the festival cities. With the outbreak of the “Corona Pandemic”, music festivals worldwide are cancelled – so is the Bayreuth Festival. In Salzburg, on the other hand, the festival management is delaying a decision. It quickly becomes clear that Salzburg and Bayreuth are dealing with the pandemic very differently. What are the consequences of these two contrary approaches for culture and the economy?

This documentary examines the current situation in the two most famous festival cities in the world. How does the “Salzburg model” work, where festival management, city and state, with the active help of the federal government, find a way to save the festival and limit the economic damage? What is being done to organize them as safely as possible under the current conditions? And what does the cancellation of the Wagner Festival mean for Bayreuth and the people in the region? How do singers like Klaus Florian Vogt, Günter Groissböck or Camilla Nylund cope? How is Bayreuth going to position itself as a cultural city for the next festival years?

Festival Cities in Crisis
(Festspielstädte und die Krise – Bayreuth und Salzburg in Corona-Zeiten)

A documentary by Günter Atteln and Carmen Belaschk