La Chaux-de-Fonds targets one million visitors as cultural capital
Tuesday 22nd September 2026 on 20:45 in
Switzerland
La Chaux-de-Fonds hopes to attract one million visitors during its year as Switzerland’s first cultural capital, SRF reports. More than 300 events are planned at around 70 venues across the city, ranging from living rooms to the airport runway.
The programme includes concerts, theatre, raves and exhibitions. It begins with a festival on December 31, 2026, during which the alternative theatre ensemble La Crush will stage what it describes as a “subversive ritual”. Twelve months of cultural events will follow.
“There should be something for everyone,” said artistic director Laurence Perez. She said the programme had to balance the visibility of the local cultural scene, public participation and national and international appeal.
Organisers are working with established event organisers from other parts of Switzerland, including the Locarno Film Festival. Its director, Giona Nazzaro, plans to turn the Place du Marché in the old town into a small piazza, creating a meeting place combining Ticino palm trees with the fir trees of the Neuchâtel Jura.
Preparing the programme proved difficult. Raising the 18 million Swiss francs needed for the project was so challenging that the event was postponed by two years. The local cultural scene also protested that it was not being sufficiently included, and the artistic leadership had to be replaced.
For city president Théo Bregnard, the project has already helped the city renovate important architectural monuments. The most prominent example is the huge hall of the former slaughterhouse, an early 20th-century building that had recently seen little use. Renovated for the cultural year, it is intended to become its centrepiece and remain an event venue after 2027.
The city is contributing 2.5 million Swiss francs to the programme. Bregnard believes the investment is justified because the cultural year could boost tourism in the city’s outlying districts.
Local actor and comedian Juliette Vernerey also hopes the event will challenge perceptions of La Chaux-de-Fonds. “People always say La Chaux-de-Fonds is extremely remote and extremely cold. That is wrong,” she said, adding that the city was warm and open and could show those qualities during the cultural year.