"Screw king" pays

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The festival city of Salzburg is supported by a new record-breaking sponsor.

(Bild: Tourismus Salzburg GmbH)

President Kristina Hammer wins the billionaire "king of screws" and great patron of the arts Reinhold Würth (89) as a new main sponsor.

"We are particularly pleased that the Würth Group will be the new main sponsor of the Salzburg Festival from 2025," says Festival President Kristina Hammer.

The "Krone" was informed in advance of the deal for the Festival, which will have a proud six main sponsors from 2025, as the current five have also been extended over the next few years: "There were six for a short time many years ago, but this is the largest number of main sponsors and we will leave it at that."

The great patron of the arts Reinhold Würth has made a fortune with screws and dowels.

(Bild: Leopold Museum/APA-Fotoservice/Tanzer)

Festival President Kristina Hammer

(Bild: Salzburger Festspiele / Peter Rigaud)

Private sponsors are essential for Austria's largest cultural festival, because "we finance around three quarters of ourselves", says Hammer. Of course, she can't give any exact figures for sponsorship.

But in 2024, the festival's total budget will amount to 71.2 million euros. Only 28.54 percent of this will come from taxes, the remaining 71.46 percent will be raised through ticket sales (40 percent), thanks to sponsors, patrons, friends' associations and rentals of the festival venues.

The Würth Group has been a project sponsor for the "jung & jede*r" youth program since 2023, and Reinhold Würth has been a festival patron for many years.

Reinhold Würth

Reinhold Würth, who built a global company from a screw shop with just one employee in Künzelsau near Stuttgart, Germany, has been a great patron of the arts for almost 60 years. The billionaire has amassed one of the most important collections in the world and opened 15 museums and exhibition spaces throughout Europe, where he makes this collection accessible to the public free of charge. He supports musical projects with his own foundation, including founding the Würth Philharmonic Orchestra in 2017.

Kristina Hammer was already highly successful in 2023 when she received a promise from entrepreneur Hans-Peter Wild to "support the construction of the new festival center with up to twelve million euros. This is the largest single donation from a patron that we have ever received." 

Comment: Salzburg presidents
Helga Rabl-Stadler can tell you a thing or two about how tough the early years of a Salzburg Festival president can be, when the then Artistic Director Mortier would have loved to box her back into her dirndl store in Getreidegasse. Kristina Hammer, a German-Swiss national with a doctorate in business law and management, has been no different since she took over on January 1, 2022. It's an open secret that artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser can't get on with the PR lady, the tugging of powers back and forth is evidence of a "suboptimal internal relationship in the directorate", the mayor also stated, and there has been increasing talk of Hammer's disempowerment - especially as the governor is known to dream of the festival presidency himself. Incidentally, this includes the areas of representation, marketing, PR, sales - and fundraising, i.e. raising sponsorship money. Hammer has now impressively proven that she can do this by landing another big fish. Mission accomplished!

Stefan Weinberger