The exclusive Wagner Festival in Bayreuth is not selling out for the first time.

Tickets went on sale before Christmas, as they do every season. Every year, even with a close eye on the release date, it was often impossible to get tickets for the Bayreuth Festival , and fans would wait in lines for several years to get them, then adapt their vacations or work projects to the affordable performance. Merkel acknowledged at the time that she, too, had to wait in line.

This summer, however, just hours before the legendary Green Hill opens, there are still tickets waiting to be purchased at the box office. According to the festival's commercial director, Ulrich Jagels, there are still seats available for "Tristan und Isolde" and "Parsifal." For the first time in generations, Bayreuth is not displaying the "Ausverkauft" sign.

Last year, tickets were still sold out, according to Jagel. The festival raised around €14.3 million from ticket sales in 2024. The total budget was around €27.75 million, resulting in a surplus of €2.7 million.

Around 35 percent of the total budget is made up of public subsidies, and the Bayreuth Friends of the Festival also contributes. Members of this society, like the general Wagner audience, are aging steadily. Places reserved for members are sometimes not filled and are sold at the last minute, only to be rejected. Therefore, the festival makes an effort to recruit younger fans.

According to its own information, the Patrons' Association is contributing around 1.8 million euros to the budget this year and is also supporting projects such as the children's opera, which, according to Georg von Waldenfels, is hoping to entice the public from the outset.

"My parents took me to Bayreuth, and my father took his. That was what we did in the summer, and it never occurred to me to consider any other option. We used to think differently. My children, however, have been organizing their own vacations from a very young age and have their own plans. And my grandchildren even more so. They have the possibility to choose, and although they've come to several editions and like Wagner, know how to appreciate it, this year they chose to travel abroad," says Fabian Kassel, an 82-year-old aficionado. "I think it has to do with something cultural, with our current society's renunciation of excellence," diagnoses Amanda Lens, recently arrived from across the Atlantic.

Every summer, more than 60,000 fans from around the world flock to this spot nestled in the Franconian region of Bavaria. Designed by Wagner himself, this theater is famous for its unique acoustics and design, specifically tailored to perform the German composer's operas, making the building a kind of musical temple in his memory.

Next year's 150th anniversary edition is already looming large, and festival director Katharina Wagner has already announced that star conductor Christian Thielemann, currently head of the Berlin State Opera, will take over as musical director for the Ring des Nibelungens. Part of the production will be an AI-generated performance , sometimes drawing on visual material from previous Ring productions – a new stage product with which Bayreuth will make each performance a unique experience and with which it also aims to update itself and attract new audiences.

For now, this Friday marks the opening of this year's edition with the premiere of a new staging of "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg," which has aroused great interest. Musical direction is by Italian Daniele Gatti and staged by German Matthias Davids, who has sought to highlight the libretto's humorous aspects in his version. The voices of Georg Zeppenfeld as Hans Sachs, Christina Nilsson as Eva, Michael Spyres as Stolzing, and Michael Nagy as Beckmesser guarantee the high standard.

Thielemann 's return to conduct Lohengrin has been hailed as the "event of the year" by die-hard Wagnerians, while the physical demands placed on Andreas Schager, who sings Parsifal and Tristan on consecutive nights, have been considered "reckless" by some critics.

The festival's aperitif took place last night with an open-air concert in which Spaniard Pablo Heras-Casado conducted the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra with a program of Wagner, but also Beethoven and Mahler, among other composers. The Spaniard will also conduct Parsifal on July 30, with Elīna Garanča as Kundry, Andreas Schager as Parsifal, and a staging by Jay Scheib that incorporates augmented reality glasses for some of the audience. Overall, the event, which Operaworld has previously described as "the best Parsifal in over twenty years," is a feat.

Bayreuth is also launching management changes. The Bavarian and German governments have appointed Matthias Rädel, who served as Deputy General Director and Controlling Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin for 19 years, as its new General Director. His role will be to oversee all financial and administrative matters, allowing Katharina Wagner to focus entirely on the artistic side.