Pflasterspektakel

Street artist on the main square (2013)

Pflasterspektakel in the Landstrasse (2013)

The Pflasterspektakel is an international street art festival lasting several days, which has been held annually in July in the Upper Austrian capital Linz since 1987 .

The Pflasterspektakel was initiated by Siegbert Janko, then head of the city's cultural office, who organized a street festival combined with a meeting of local street artists. At the first Pflasterspektakel in 1987, the artists still had to be found and invited. The encouraging response from the participants and the audience motivated the organizers to continue, so that the festival continued to grow and is now considered one of the highlights of the European street art scene. In 2005, in glorious weather, more than 250,000 visitors came for the first time. At the 21st Pflasterspektakel in July 2007, around 130 groups or individual actors with 600 actors from over 40 nations performed and again attracted 200,000 visitors. The performances during the three-day festival take place at around 40 places in downtown Linz and range from jugglingand acrobatics to clowning and pantomime , from street music to the evening samba parade and nightly fire shows. In 2006, for example, the final highlight was a spectacular midnight jam session consisting of several fire show groups, whose acrobatic performance was musically accompanied by an electronic and didgeridoo live performance. In 2019 the street art festival will take place for the 33rd time.

Each artist has three performance dates a day, which are divided up every morning in the festival headquarters. To avoid discrepancies in the choice of seats, the artists are given three numbers each, a low, a medium and a high. These numbers will be called up one after the other, and the artists will choose a free performance location and date in the appropriate order. The festival is basically free of charge for visitors, but since the artists do not receive a fee apart from a grant for travel and accommodation , they are dependent on “monetary applause” (hat money) from the audience.

Performance locations

The approx. 40 performance seats are divided into several Pflasterspektakel worlds. The performance areas in 2019 are:

main square
Pfarrplatz and Domgasse
Old town
Country road
promenade

In rainy weather, the venues will be relocated and the performances can take place in the dry. The most important rainy spectacle places are the Taubenmarkt-Arkade, the Ursulinenhof, the Atrium shopping arcade, the Passage Linz and the old town hall.

Performance times

The spectacle takes place from Thursday to Saturday. The festival starts on Thursday at 4 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday at 2 p.m. The festival ends at midnight on each of the three days.

During the Pflasterspektakel, the trams (run on Landstrasse) will be short-circuited and rail replacement services will be operated between the Hauptbahnhof and Sonnensteinstrasse stops.

Highlights

Samba parade: Friday and Saturday from 9pm to 10pm
Fire performance: daily at 9 p.m. on the main square, Pfarrplatz, Tummelplatz and Domgasse
Kaleidoscope nights: daily at 10 p.m. in the spectacle tent on Pfarrplatz

Picture gallery

Mike Marriott , 19th Pflasterspektakel 2005
Bartels Living Statues "Bacchus", 19th Pflasterspektakel 2005
Trapeze artist Theaker von Ziarno from New Zealand, 19th Pflasterspektakel 2005
Close-up of the trapeze artist Theaker von Ziarno from New Zealand, 19th Pflasterspektakel 2005
Psalteria from the Czech Republic presents medieval music, 19th Pflasterspektakel 2005
Yo-yo artist Naoto, Pflasterspektakel 2019