This evening The most prestigious business award is given to the most successful Salzburg companies. Time to take a look at Salzburg as a business location.

These days, the Salzburg Festival gave the go-ahead for the general renovation and expansion of the aging festival halls. With projected costs of 262 million euros, this project, which has been laid out for several years, is the largest of the chunks listed in the General Plan for Economic Buildings of the State of Salzburg. In addition to the renovation of the festival halls, there is also additional exhibition space in the New Residence, the construction of a visitor center in the cathedral quarter with a passage to the cathedral excavation museum, a new building for the Mozarteum University, a “Sound of Music” museum in Hellbrunn, the renovation of the south oratory of the cathedral or a new visitor center is planned for the Salzburg open-air museum in Großgmain.

“The cultural industry is one of our strengths,” says Governor Wilfried Haslauer. The Salzburg state government also sees the massive investment in these strengths as an economic stimulus package. The plan lists a total of 22 projects in which more than 500 million euros will be invested by 2030. The money for this comes from the state as well as from the federal government, the city of Salzburg or the community equalization fund. “The city and state of Salzburg are of particular importance in the artistic and cultural field. In order to maintain and expand this position of Salzburg, the State of Salzburg, together with other partners, especially the City of Salzburg

In order to implement the renovation of the festival halls, the festival fund, as the client of this day, started a European general planner competition. The plan is to renew the building services in the Great Festival Hall, among other things. The fire protection must be brought up to date and the roof renovated. Many things that visitors do not see, but which secure the operation of the festival halls for the future. A new building – will be located behind the existing building – should rearrange the organizing processes in the workshops, rehearsal rooms or artists’ dressing rooms and urgently create additional space. In addition, a new delivery tunnel WILL be built through the Mönchsberg and thus relieve the Hofstallgasse. If everything goes according to plan, this project should be completed by 2030.

Another major project from the cultural buildings package, which was recently launched, is a new building for the Mozarteum University. In the Kurpark – adjacent to the Mirabell Gardens – not only rehearsal rooms and offices for the studio for electronic music, but also the multimedia and digitization laboratory X-Reality-Lab will be built at the place where the Kurhaus used to be. It sees itself as an artistic workshop and research space for audiovisual design. In addition to the rooms for the university, the new building will also offer a new home for the Salzburg Bach Choir. Construction is to begin next spring, and the opening is planned for autumn 2024. The construction costs are estimated at 20 million euros, the majority coming from the federal government.

(“Die Presse”, print edition, 11/10/2021)