Theater Spektakel 2013 – a very good year
Final report
The «Swamp Club» took place in the Werft venue only: The visually powerful work by the French up-and-coming director Phillippe Quesne, which kicked off the Theater Spektakel, did turn out to be this year's motto. The festival started with fantastic weather and three premieres («Remote Zürich» by Stefan Kaegi & Rimini Protokoll, «Knacks» by Bichsel & Gargiulo and «Miis!» by Kolypan) and ended with fantastic weather and two premieres («Badke» by KVS & Les ballets C de la B and «Love.State.Kosovo» by Fleischlin, Schupp, Ismaili & Rexhepi). The Theater Spektakel 2013 will go down as one of the most successful festivals in it’s thirty-four years of history. On the one hand, this is due to the fine weather conditions, which drew a great number of people to the Landiwiese and ensured that no performance had to be cancelled. On the other hand, the varied, high-profile programme was received exceptionally well by the audiences.
Around 150 000 visitors enjoyed the artistic and culinary offer on the Landiwiese this year. The Zentral stage contributed greatly to the festival's distinctive atmosphere. The curated and free programme of street art was a crowd-puller and turned the Zentral into the vibrant hub of the festival site. The pilot project «Theater Spektakel – an inclusive event», co-hosted with the organisation Procap, met with gratifying success. Considerably more people with special needs visited the festival site or one of the «inclusive» performances. (Find more information below.)
A total of 27 800 spectators attended one of the performances subject to charge. Those are a remarkable 7% more than in 2012, given that the total capacity was 850 seats lower than in the previous year. Every other of the 137 performances sold out. 70% of all performances complied with or exceeded the budgeted 75% of seats sold. The average percentage of seats sold was 80.4%!
All in all, a truly successful festival and a beautiful farewell for Cornelia Howald, who will retire this autumn after co-directing the festival with Werner Hegglin and Sandro Lunin one last time.
The 35th Zürcher Theater Spektakel takes place from Thursday 14 August to Sunday 31 August 2014.
