The Salzburg Festival as its organiser describes it

What the Festival is

The Salzburg Festival is, in its own words, a festival of opera, drama and concerts, presented in Salzburg over a period of five to six weeks each summer.[2] It also runs a short Whitsun festival in May: on 9 October 2026 its home page listed Whitsun 2027 as 14 to 17 May 2027 and Summer 2027 as 16 July to 29 August 2027.[1] Those 2027 summer dates span longer than six weeks, so the "five to six weeks" on the About page is best read as a general description rather than next year's calendar.

The organiser describes itself in strong terms, saying it offers a broader programme than any other festival and that it is often described as the greatest festival in the world.[2] XTOUR quotes those as the organiser's claims and makes no comparison of its own.

How it began, as the organiser tells it

The Festival says it was founded more than 100 years ago by the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the director Max Reinhardt and the composer Richard Strauss. It says its "birth hour" is generally given as 22 August 1920, when Hofmannsthal's morality play Jedermann was first performed on the Domplatz (Cathedral Square) in Reinhardt's staging.[2]

Its About page traces a longer prehistory. In 1877 the Vienna Philharmonic came to Salzburg for a music festival, its first performance outside Vienna, at the invitation of what the page calls the "International Mozart Foundation"; in 1917 a Salzburg Festspielhaus-Gemeinde was founded in Vienna to raise money for a festival house; the same year Reinhardt submitted a memorandum for building a festival house in Hellbrunn; and in 1919 Hofmannsthal published a draft programme. The page presents the result as a civic initiative of Salzburg's middle class given its intellectual shape by Viennese protagonists, and is open about the ambivalence it sees in the project, between tradition and modernity.[2] The Austrian Commission for UNESCO, describing the city's World Heritage site, names the Festival as a continuation of the musical tradition Mozart founded.[11]

For Hellbrunn, where Reinhardt proposed his festival house, see Hellbrunn Palace and its trick fountains; for the International Mozarteum Foundation and its two Mozart museums, see Mozart's Birthplace or the Mozart Residence.

Who runs it

The body legally responsible for the Festival is the Salzburger Festspielfonds (Salzburg Festival Foundation), established by an Austrian federal law of 12 July 1950. Its organs are an Assembly of Delegates, a Supervisory Board and a Board of Directors; the Board of Directors runs the Festival and proposes the budget, and the Supervisory Board appoints it and approves the programme, budget and accounts. On 9 October 2026 the organisation page listed Karin Bergmann as Interim Artistic Director, Kristina Hammer as President, Lukas Crepaz as Executive Director and Peter de Caluwe as Designated Artistic Director for 2028, and the imprint names the Salzburg Festival Foundation at Hofstallgasse 1 as media owner.[9][3] Those names are dated and will change.

The Salzburg Easter Festival is a different organisation: the Festival's own history describes it as "organizationally autonomous".[6] The Mozart Week (Mozartwoche) is advertised on the International Mozarteum Foundation's own site, whose home page was offering Mozartwoche 2027 tickets when XTOUR read it.[10] See the Mozart guide.

Where it plays

The Festival's venues page describes a Festival District made up of the Grosses Festspielhaus, the Haus für Mozart and the Felsenreitschule, together with the Cathedral Square and the Kollegienkirche. The same page says Archbishop Wolf Dietrich had stables built on the site in 1606/07, a winter riding school was added in 1662, the complex served as cavalry barracks in the 19th century, and it was opened to the Festival gradually from 1925.[5] The Festival's history page dates the inauguration of the Grosses Festspielhaus to 26 July 1960 and gives it around 2,200 seats.[6]

The venue list goes well beyond that district, taking in churches, university halls, the Mozarteum's Great Hall, the State Theatre and the Perner-Insel in Hallein.[5] Hallein is a separate town from Salzburg, so not every Festival performance is in the city itself.

Jedermann

Jedermann is the play the Festival dates its founding to, and it is still performed in the open air on the Cathedral Square.[2] The ticket page sets out what happens in bad weather: in rain or uncertain weather a performance may move to the Grosses Festspielhaus, a performance counts as completed after 60 minutes, and side-by-side seats cannot be guaranteed after a move indoors.[4]

How ticketing works

The Festival's ticket page distinguishes ordering from buying.[4]

• Ordering. Once the programme is published, you order performances, numbers of tickets and price categories, but cannot choose seats. Orders received by the deadline are treated equally, whatever time they arrive; an order is no guarantee of tickets; and orders from members of the Friends of the Festival, patrons and subscribers are processed first. The page says the chances of an allocation improve with flexibility on performance, date and category.
• Buying. After all orders have been processed, direct sales begin, and the remaining tickets can be bought with specific seats on the website, by phone or at the ticket office.

In the 2026 cycle, the same page says, the Whitsun festival opened with a subscription sale before single tickets went on sale. Tickets are personalised with the visitor's name and admission requires photo ID; orders and purchases are binding; and returns are possible only for sold-out performances, for resale on commission with no guarantee of resale. The page also says there are no special last-minute discounts, and that heavily discounted youth tickets for under-27s are sold through an app for selected performances.[4]

What has and has not been announced for 2027

On 9 October 2026 the ticket page said the 2027 programme, for Whitsun and summer, is expected to be published in early December, and that orders can only be accepted once it is published.[4] The order deadline and the start of direct sales for 2027 had not been announced. The dates the page still gave for the last cycle (orders from 4 December 2025, a deadline of 20 January 2026 and direct sales from 27 March 2026) describe the 2026 festival and are not 2027 dates.[4]

The same page reported the 2026 summer as 172 performances on 45 days at 19 venues, attended by 261,300 guests from 84 countries.[4] Those are the organiser's figures for 2026.

Practical notes the Festival gives

According to the Festival's visitor FAQ, it looks forward to welcoming audiences "in festive and elegant evening attire"; coats and umbrellas must be handed in at the free cloakroom; bags above a stated size are not allowed; and visitors should bring photo ID and arrive about 30 minutes early because police checks are possible. It also announced that the Neutor closes to private traffic and public transport from 14 September 2026 for about six months, with access to the theatres via the car parks closed from 1 September. For summer 2026 it said a festival ticket was valid on public transport in the Salzburg network from 17 July to 30 August; XTOUR does not know whether the arrangement continues in 2027.[7]

The festival halls can be seen outside performances only on a guided tour.[7] The guided-tours page, read on 9 October 2026, says construction work was limiting the tours, that tickets are sold only online and that groups are limited to 20; it gives two different starting points, the foyer of the Grosses Festspielhaus in its notice and the Haus für Mozart and Felsenreitschule entrance in its FAQ, and two different photography rules.[8] XTOUR reports both and does not choose.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not publish ticket prices, does not know the 2027 programme, order deadline or direct-sales date, and has not read the Festival's terms and conditions in full. For the city itself, see Salzburg.