Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – The 30th Stuttgart summer festival should have been celebrated in August – but nothing will come of it: on Monday the organizer declared the festival to be history. The cancellation is directly related to the corona pandemic, said the in.Stuttgart event company.
The number of restaurateurs who were previously responsible for the culinary offerings at the summer festival has fallen from 28 to 18. In addition, there are major concerns in the catering industry about staff shortages, increased energy prices and inflation in many other areas. The end of the event took place in coordination with the city, it said.
“Under these conditions, we simply cannot hold a summer festival as we know it from the past few years,” said in.Stuttgart Managing Director Andreas Kroll according to the announcement. According to him, many economic aspects also played a role, “starting with the stand fees to the additional costs for security and stewardship”.
With the lower capacity, 500,000 people could not be entertained when the weather was nice – “that would only lead to bottlenecks and certainly also to displeasure among the guests,” said Kroll.
The summer festival “as we know it” will probably no longer exist, he emphasized. It has become almost obsolete over the years. However, new ideas and concepts are already being developed. The summer festival should therefore become a city festival.
