Salzburg weighs temporary venue for festival hall renovation
Tuesday 29th September 2026 on 08:00 in
Austria
The Salzburg Festival’s board will decide in mid-October where performances will move during the renovation of the Great Festival Hall, ORF reports. The main choice is between using existing facilities at the Salzburg Arena and Messezentrum, or building a temporary hall at one of two possible sites.
The renovation is due to begin in autumn 2028 and is expected to last two and a half years. The proposed sites for a new hall are a meadow in Nonntal, once owned by St Joseph’s monastery, and land belonging to the Stiegl brewery in Maxglan. The existing-facilities option would use the Salzburg Arena and a hall at the Messezentrum in Liefering.
Festival commercial director Lukas Crepaz said the decision was a matter of concept: whether to build a hall that could later be dismantled and reused for other temporary performance venues, or to focus solely on the festival by adapting and using the Arena and Messezentrum.
The Arena could accommodate 2,000 people, compared with 2,200 in the Great Festival Hall, but changes would be needed. Festival board member and Salzburg Mayor Bernhard Auinger said the Messezentrum would contribute to investment in the acoustics.
Officials are also examining a temporary roof over Domplatz, where the festival stages Jedermann, its most frequently performed play. A roof would make performances less dependent on the weather and allow the Great Festival Hall to host events at the same time after its renovation. Crepaz said private funding would cover the flexible roof, and preparations for a tender are under way.
The festival workshops are due to move during construction to the former Puma headquarters near the border with Freilassing. Crepaz said he would decide later whether to seek another term as commercial director, as key decisions on the building project are now approaching.
Preparations are also under way for a connecting tunnel from the Neutor into the heart of the festival district, with milling work expected to begin this week. The new festival centre is nearing completion and is scheduled to open in mid-December.