Weimar Art Festival 2025: A celebration of creativity and the courage to make art!

Weimar Art Festival 2025: A celebration of creativity and the courage to make art!

The cultural city of Weimar is about to experience an exciting highlight: the Weimar Art Festival will take place from August 20th to September 7th, 2025, which is considered the largest festival for contemporary art in East Germany. Amid the picturesque backdrop surrounding Goethe's birthday on August 28th, the festival presents a varied program at 25 locations in and around Weimar, including the German National Theater, the Weimarhalle and the Bauhaus Museum. If you take a look at the variety of offerings, it becomes clear that art is celebrated here in all its different facets. [Thüringer Allgemeine](https://www.thueringer- Allgemeine.de/kultur/article409175008/kunstfest-weimar-das-sind-die-bessersten-fakten-13-fragen-und- Answeren.html) reports on a total of around 150 events and 40 to 50 projects, covering areas such as drama, opera, dance theater, concerts and visual arts.

This year's motto “Live Courageously” underlines the political dimension of art and reflects efforts to initiate discussions that are still relevant today. “The art festival is a stage for a cross-generational discussion of social issues,” says Rolf C. Hemke, artistic director of the festival since 2014. Under his leadership, which successfully navigated through pandemic challenges, the art festival has raised its profile and positioned itself as an important part of Weimar's culinary and cultural landscape. Kunstfest Weimar emphasizes that the festival is not just an art event, but also serves as an exchange between audience groups and artists.

Diverse offerings and accessibility

For those interested, the question arises about the tickets: These are available at the German National Theater box office and online. The prices are on average around 20 euros, with the first cards starting at 7.50 euros and the most expensive ones costing between 45 and 57 euros. Discounts for school and college students are also available, making the festival accessible to a wide audience.

Visitors should consider traveling by public transportation as parking options in Weimar are limited. Nevertheless, the city welcomes potential guests with its underground car parks and parking spaces in the city center, which invite you to visit the festival in a relaxed manner.

Art festival in a historical context

Founded in 1990, the Weimar Art Festival has established itself as one of the most important cultural initiatives in eastern Germany and reflects both the history of classical and modern art. Initially launched as a West German idea, the festival gained importance from 1993 under the direction of Bernd Kauffmann. One of the stumbling blocks in history is financial insecurity, which has, however, been overcome again and again due to public protests. The number of visitors speaks for itself: they rose from over 22,000 in 2019 to an impressive 43,000 in 2024. [Weimar.de](https://www.weimar.de/kultur/veranstaltungen/hoehe points/kunstfest-weimar/) emphasizes that the festival not only enriches the cultural calendar of events, but also makes a significant contribution to promoting exchange between locals and tourists.

The Weimar Art Festival remains not only a festival of the arts, but also a place for conversation and experience - a real highlight in the festival season that is very popular in the creative city of Weimar.