Setting the stage for one of Salzburg’s tourist magnets

After challenging years of crisis, the Salzburg Festival is looking into a bright future and is already planning up to 2032.

The Salzburg Festival survives everything – because despite the pandemic, the performances also took place during the Covid years. Therefore, it was able to celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2020. Lukas Crepaz has been the Commercial Director of the Salzburg Festival since 2017, successfully steering the traditional festival through the years of crisis, and will hold this position at least until 2027. The Tyrolean-born director provides insights into the fascination of the Festival, its economic significance and plans for the future.

How much have the past years left their mark on the Salzburg Festival?
Lukas Crepaz: In 2020, the Salzburg Festival was the only major festival in the world that took place, and thus took on a pioneering role for the entire cultural sector. Our concept was a model for the European cultural scene and was adopted by many cultural institutions. I am firmly convinced that it is precisely in these times of great uncertainty that the DNA of the Salzburg Festival helps us: to make art possible. This aim drives every single one of our employees – every one of the more than 250 year-round staff and every single one of the up to 4,500 performers during the summer months. And with this attitude, we were able to accomplish the feat of celebrating our 100th anniversary in the midst of the greatest health crisis in Europe since the Spanish flu with a four-week festival programme that was artistically sensible, economically feasible and, with the application of a strict and precise prevention concept, safe for health. Almost 80,000 visitors were able to experience the 110 events of the Festival in 2020. In making the necessary decisions, we as the Board of Directors – President Helga-Rabl- Stadler, Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser and myself – were spurred on by a look at the Salzburg Festival’s own very chequered history and the courage of our founders and predecessors. The Festival was conceived in the midst of the First World War as a peace project by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Reinhardt and Richard Strauss. There is a memorandum from 1917 to the imperial- royal court theatre director in which Max Reinhardt promoted his vision. At the Salzburg Festival, formerly hostile nations were to find each other again and experience the highest of the arts together. At the same time, Reinhardt had argued in this time of crisis what economic significance such an undertaking would have for the entire country and what prosperity future visitors from all over the world would bring to the entire region. This writing, so visionary, has long since come true..

What is the economic significance of the Salzburg Festival?
Crepaz: The Festival has always been a mutually enriching unity of art and business, it has formed its own eco-system. It consists of effects that are actually measurable and that can be calculated as models, and of effects that cannot be measured. The most recent value-added study by the Austrian Economic Chamber showed a value added of 183 million euros in Salzburg alone and 215 million euros per year in Austria as a whole. In addition, the Festival creates or secures 2,800 full-time, year-round jobs in Salzburg and 3,400 in Austria. Many entrepreneurs, especially in the retail and catering sectors, tell me that they generate about a third of their year-round turnover during the six weeks of the Festival. During the Festival, Salzburg is a cultural cosmopolitan city – the whole city breathes the Festival. The very high-quality demand of festival guests stimulates trade, the hotel industry and gastronomy. There are educational, competence and identity effects emanating from the Festival that are difficult to measure. The advertising effect through the tens of thousands of reports, social media posts, television and radio reports and streaming that appear worldwide about the Salzburg Festival and reach millions of people is huge. Every year, over 213,000 ticket holders attend the more than 200 events of the Salzburg Festival. Another 100,000 people visit the free admission offers, especially the Siemens.Festspiel. Nächte at Kapitelplatz and the Festival Opening.

Do you think there will be a moment when people that are not affluent are no longer able to attend the festival due to the high inflation?
Crepaz: We want to be a festival for everyone. More than 50 per cent of our tickets, that is more than 100,000 tickets, cost between five and 110 euros. Even in times of high inflation, we have only increased ticket prices in the most expensive categories, where price elasticity and tolerance of price increases is different. The offer in the lower price categories remained unchanged. It is particularly important to us to make this participation possible, no matter what income group you are in. Affordability is of course an issue, especially in economically challenging times. But we notice that our guests want to afford art. We see this in the demand, which is unbroken. We are heading back towards the pre-pandemic level.

Is the balancing act between artistic desires and budget reality difficult?
Crepaz: The Festival has a self-support ratio of 75 per cent. We are both an art business and an enterprise. This is also the self-image of our programming. People often assume that the artistic and the commercial way of thinking are completely opposed. We are very fortunate that in Markus Hinterhäuser we have an artistic director who has a great understanding of commercial necessities. Of course, high inflation is a very big challenge for us. While energy and material prices have already returned halfway to normal, the big challenge lies in the long-term effects. Due to the increased cost of living, the pressure in collective bargaining is much greater, which significantly increases personnel costs. This puts a lot of pressure on the budgets for the next few years. We will have an increase in staff costs in the two years 2023
The Festival has a self-support ratio of 75 per cent. We are both an art business and an enterprise. This is also the self-image of our programming. People often assume that the artistic and the commercial way of thinking are completely opposed. We are very fortunate that in Markus Hinterhäuser we have an artistic director who has a great understanding of commercial necessities. Of course, high inflation is a very big challenge for us. While energy and material prices have already returned halfway to normal, the big challenge lies in the long-term effects. Due to the increased cost of living, the pressure in collective bargaining is much greater, which significantly increases personnel costs. This puts a lot of pressure on the budgets for the next few years. We will have an increase in staff costs in the two years 2023 and 2024 that is as high as the cumulative cost increases of the previous six years. Since art and culture are very much depending on personnel, we are also talking about the largest share of our budget here.

Do the big stars cut back on fees – compared to big solo concerts, for example – because a performance at the Salzburg Festival also has a great PR value?
Crepaz: We can’t pay the fees of large commercial organisers. We have maximum fees that are kept stable and accepted by everyone. The long-standing relationship with our artists is characterised by mutual appreciation. And, of course, the aura of the Salzburg Festival is highly appreciated by all performers.

Would the Salzburg Festival exist without the currently 18 million euros in public funding?
Crepaz: I prefer to talk about investments here. One finding of the value-added study was that every year 77 million euros flow back to the Federal Government, the Province and the City in direct and indirect taxes and duties. That means that every euro invested comes back several times over.

The Salzburg Festival also offers a programme for young people. Is this how you attract the audience of tomorrow?
Crepaz: In 2020, with the help of Raiffeisen, Uniqa and the Würth Group, we were able to restructure and significantly expand our children’s and youth programme. In the Young & Everyone programme, a total of 54 events and workshops will now take place from March to the end of August. In addition to the children’s opera, there are now further drama and musical theatre productions. In our From Abtenau to Zell am See programme, we bring our productions to schools and cultural centres throughout the province of Salzburg, thus reaching children and young people who would otherwise not be able to come to the Festival. This is very important to us in terms of participation and cultural education because we notice that there are great deficits in cultural and educational policy.

Do you feel the sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia? Both in the loss of Russian artists and in the absence of guests
Crepaz: We condemn the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine and have a clear position here. Anyone who identifies with this war, its protagonists or its goals cannot perform at or be a partner of the Festival. The Salzburg Festival is an international festival with visitors and artists from all over the world. Russia was an important source market before the war. This is no longer the case. However, guests from over 80 nations continue to come to the Salzburg Festival, and as of this year, the top 10 source markets include the USA, Japan and South Korea, in addition to the European countries.

At the Bayreuth Festival in 2023, many seats remained empty, the media spoke of a swansong. How do you see this development in connection with the Salzburg Festival?
Crepaz: The demand for tickets at the Salzburg Festival continues to be sensational, we are again heading for an excellent occupancy rate of 97 per cent. Everyone has the opportunity to get tickets – whether it’s the international audience planning for the longer term, sponsors, friends and patrons or those who decide at short notice. Short-term demand is particularly high in a summer as strong as this one. Interest in individual productions increases especially if the production in question is very well received and reviewed or if it is polarising. We have been selling between five and ten per cent of tickets in the summer for years.

Your contract was extended for another five years in 2021 and runs until March 2027. Can you already draw a mid-term balance?
Crepaz: We have taken on a lot in the areas of digitisation, sustainability and infrastructure and are on a very good path. The project of the century, Festival District 2030, for which I am responsible, will secure the future of the three festival halls, i.e. the central cultural infrastructure of the province. The project will run until 2032. We are currently in the intensive planning phase and will start implementation in autumn 2025. An ambitious sustainability strategy has been developed for the buildings, which will also be extended to their operation next year.