New analysis by the City of Brno’s Department of Culture, commissioned as part of an update of its Culture and Creative Industries Strategy, has found that attendance to the city’s festivals has been growing steadily in recent years.
The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the participation, organization and funding of the city’s cultural and creative festivals between 2019 and 2024, including all events with more than 500 attendees. In total, 106 festivals and 507 individual events were examined.
“Festivals are proving to be an increasingly popular form of entertainment,” said Brno Mayor Markéta Vaňková. “Even though the period in question included two years affected by the Covid pandemic and related restrictions, the figures show that both organisers and visitors returned to festivals afterwards.”
The study found that the number of events is increasing, and the last three years have seen 2.5 times as many visitors as before Covid, with around 2.5 million people attending festivals each year. Multi-genre festivals are the most popular.
Music festivals account for one in three of the city’s festivals, reflecting Brno’s inclusion in the UNESCO network of creative cities of music. Multi-genre festivals account for about 18%, theatre and circus festivals for 10%.
In terms of financial support, the City of Brno plays the most important role. Events are also supported by the South Moravian Region, the Ministry of Culture, the State Fund for Culture, the European Union, the EEA, the Norwegian Fund and the Visegrad Fund. The total budget for all festivals in 2019-2024 was CZK 1.35 billion, an average of CZK 225.5 million per year.
The analysis did not just take into account hard data, but also qualitative factors such as accessibility, on which the Department of Culture has been focusing for a long time. The study made clear that there was often little information available about accessibility at individual events.
“There is a lack of data on accessibility for people with disabilities, availability of venues and other practical aspects,” added Vaňková. “Another phenomenon highlighted by the research is the concentration of events in a few months of the year and in the city centre. Expanding to other parts of the city could reach new audiences and revitalise other places, as the Pop Messe music festival at the velodrome did last year.”
The research was conducted by Blanka Marková from August 2024 to March 2025, and followed the department’s previous analysis of Brno Cultural Festivals for 2017-2019.
