75 Years of the Vienna Festival Walk

The Vienna Festival, one of Europe’s largest cultural festivals, will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2026. This walking tour takes you to significant locations and revisits some of the festival’s most memorable productions. Over the decades, the festival has left a lasting mark on Vienna. Legendary events such as Christoph Schlingensief’s “Bitte liebt Österreich!” in front of the State Opera and Frank Castorf’s production of “Dämonen” in the late 1990s are still widely discussed today. As a founding member of Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier, the festival also played an important role in shaping the city’s urban development and public spaces through art installations. The festival was equally important to Vienna’s youth culture, as demonstrated by the 1976 occupation of the Arena. Each stop on the tour highlights a specific year and revisits artistic triumphs as well as scandals and controversies. Let’s go!