Balance Wine Summer 2022 – The Gumpoldskirchner Wine Festival created as an event

The wine festival has weathered a new look from the seven-year itch. Created in 2015 as a new event on a high musical and cultural level, Summer of Wine has now established itself as a fixed point in the spa district’s late summer events programme.

After the nine days and nights of the Weinsommer, curator Thomas Andreas Beck showed a certain exhaustion: “I have a very mobile role in the festival, and as artistic supervisor and organizer, with my team I always try to get the people’s ears open.”

Despite the fact that the final chapter had to be canceled on Sunday due to the unsettled weather, Beck strikes a positive artistic balance: “The audience response has been fantastic, and we’ve received consistently positive feedback.” In addition to the good atmosphere around Schrannenplatz, Beck underscores the audience’s appreciation of all artists: “There was not a single complaint or unpleasant criticism.”

Bringing the traditional wine festival to the present

For Beck, this season’s wine summer “really took off: at first we smiled, at times we fought against, but we also admired as dreamers – now we’ve brought the traditional wine festival into the present.”

For Beck, the path led to a “balanced artistic accompaniment to the presentation of high-quality culinary: the principle of our summer wine has reached the audience, and you go there to experience new art based on the best food and drinks”.

In recent years, Beck has brought 70 artists to town, and they play with free admission. “With us, people can experience concerts they wouldn’t otherwise have attended.”

The artistic impulses of young curators

This year Beck, who describes summer wine as a “festival, as a relevant Austrian art project,” was backed by a young team of “rising curators” and drew inspiration from Alexander Nietsch, Paul Jeppeshuber and Stefan Heiderer for artistic design: “We prepared a diverse program. Discussed Everything. The young people were so present and experienced that organizing a festival of this kind is much more than just bringing artists together.”

Cultural consultant Dagmar Handler, ÖVP, who was in charge of the organization with Martina Krug Winger and Jonah Gebishopper, is satisfied: “The vineyards played very well together, and the residents were tolerant. We were always very well attended, and the atmosphere was great.”

The retailer is also grateful for “the excellent cooperation with the state of Lower Austria: we have maintained a stable partnership for many years”.