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Donauinselfest: What you need to know about Austria’s biggest open air festival

Austria has the largest free open-air festival in Europe, and the Donauinselfest is taking place this weekend. Here is what you need to know.

Published: 24 June 2022 15:11 CEST
donauinselfest Danube island festival
After years in a reduced format, the Donauinselfest is back in Vienna ((c) Thomas Peschat)

The Austrian Donauinselfest is known as the largest free open-air music festival in Europe, and it happens yearly on Vienna’s Danube island. The festival attracts around three million visitors over its three days of events and is starting on Friday in the Austrian capital.

The festival has been taking place yearly since 1983 on the 21.1-kilometre river island. This year, it has 14 different areas and 11 stages, according to the official website. Visitors can expect more than 600 hours of program.

READ ALSO: The best festivals and events to enjoy in Austria this summer

Here is what you need to know to enjoy the programme fully.

When and where is the festival?

The festival has an extensive range of events starting on Friday, June 24th, and lasting until Sunday, June 26th. It takes place on the island between the new Danube and the Danube rivers, known as the Donauinsel.

READ ALSO: 7 things to know about driving in Austria this summer

It is easily accessible via the U1 (Donauinsel station) and U6 (Handelskai station) metro and there are no parking spaces available near the festival site.

Admission to the event is free.

The festival is back after the pandemic

After two years of reduced capacity and many Covid-19 restrictions, the Donauinselfest is back to (almost) normal. There is no limit to the number of visitors, no requirement to show proof of vaccination or recovery from the disease, and no mask mandate.

However, the authorities have asked that people take “personal responsibility” as coronavirus infection numbers have been rising.

READ ALSO: Five of the best things to do in Vienna this summer

The organisers have requested people to get tested before visiting the vast festival, Vienna.at reported.

People gather on the shores of the Danube river, in Vienna during a hot sunny day and Danube Day on June 29, 2012. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER KLEIN

“We ask everyone who would like to visit the Donauinselfest this year to take a PCR or rapid test in advance and thus protect themselves and others. People with symptoms are not allowed to enter the festival grounds.”, said organiser Matthias Friedrich.

Though masks are not mandatory, they are recommended on-site if it is too full of people and no social distancing is possible. Besides, there is a masks requirement to all Donauinselfest workers in indoor areas.

Watch out for what you cannot bring

There is an extensive list of things that are not allowed on the festival site. For example, visitors are not allowed to take large bags and backpacks (“A3 format”, according to the website). However, a gym bag is not considered a backpack.

Animals, including dogs, are prohibited – except for guide dogs and service dogs.

You are also not allowed to bring umbrellas, alcoholic beverages, cans, glass bottles, or drones. The list of prohibited items includes “propaganda material”, spray bottles, whistles, large or bulky objects, bicycles and skateboards, stools and chairs, food and more.

Check out the complete list here.

Danube festival

Vienna’s “Danube-island” Festival will return this weekend. (Photo by DIETER NAGL / AFP)

READ ALSO: Forecast: Austria set for high temperatures and storms throughout weekend and beyond

You can – and should – bring plenty of water and sunscreen, as temperatures are expected to be around the 30Cs over the next few days.

What kind of music is there?

The festival has several stages and a broad programme selection. The bands are usually more regional, with a significant presence of Austrian, German, and Italian bands.

You can find all sorts of music, from pop to rock, rap, and techno. There are even tribute bands like Break Free, which will play Queen’s best signs on the rock stage.

The program includes other activities as well, such as poetry slam, art stages, sport areas, and even events for families and children.

You can check the official program here.

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CULTURE

‘Empty body’ art in tunnels dug by Austria concentration camp inmates

An exhibition of empty dresses and blood red ropes hanging inside an underground tunnel dug by concentration camp inmates in Austria during World War II seeks to bring the public closer to the "unspeakable" in memory of the victims of Nazism, its creators say.

Published: 3 May 2024 15:43 CEST
'Empty body' art in tunnels dug by Austria concentration camp inmates

“We can bring what happened here closer to people… It is possible to perhaps make the unspeakable more tangible for people,” Wolfgang Quatember, manager of the Ebensee camp memorial and museum, told AFP.

The Ebensee concentration camp was erected as a labour camp in the picturesque mountainous region around Salzburg in Austria, the country where Adolf Hitler was born and which he annexed in 1938.

More than 27,000 men from 20 different nationalities, a third of them Jewish, were imprisoned at Ebensee between 1943 and 1945.

The inmates were forced to dig underground tunnels to be used to research and develop missiles — plans which were never carried out.

More than 8,000 people died there, with the tunnels still today “proof of forced labour,” according to Quatember, who described the exhibition, which opened last week, as a “balancing act” to respectfully honour the memory of those at the concentration camp.

Conceived by internationally renowned Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, 280 kilometres (170 miles) of red ropes have been suspended from the tunnel ceiling.

The ropes connect immense ghostly dresses, seemingly floating in the air like “an empty body”, symbolising “absence in the existence”, according to Shiota.

Visitors walk along an installation of floating red ropes and empty dresses during the opening of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota’s exhibition in the tunnel of the former Ebensee concentration camp in the Salzkammergut, 250 km west of Vienna, Austria, on 26 April 2024. (Photo by KERSTIN JOENSSON / AFP)

Shiota, 51, said she used red as the colour of destiny and fate in Japan and of blood, which carries “everything, like family or nationality or religion”.

Having lived in Germany for 26 years, Shiota said she was well aware of the concentration camps that Nazi Germany built but had not been to Ebensee until she was asked to exhibit there.

With Japan allied to Nazi Germany originally, Shiota told the daily Die Presse she regrets that her native country has not done more work of remembrance so far.

The show titled “Where are we now?” runs until September in the Alpine Salzkammergut lake region, which has been elected European capital of culture for this year.

Previously, the dark, cold tunnels also hosted an opera composed in the Theresienstadt ghetto, north of Prague, where Jews were detained during World War II.

“I had never dared to enter (the tunnels) before because it seemed oppressive… But this installation allowed me to take the step,” Monika Fritsch, a 60-year-old content creator who came to the inauguration of Shiota’s installation, told AFP.

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