More than 700 performances in one special venue

On the 3^rd of August, the city of Maribor for the jubilee 30^th time became the city of puppets. Meaning, Maribor is for one month, precisely until the 1^st of September, a host to the Summer Puppet Pier Festival (Poletni lutkovni pristan), an annual international summer festival with the longest tradition. Each year, in August, thousands of visitors arrive to Puppet Theatre Maribor, where the festival is held, to enjoy in the programme. The festival offers the best Slovenian and foreign puppet performances for children, as well as performances for adults, workshops, exhibitions, installations and other accompanying events.

Every year, the core of the event is the selection of quality Slovenian and foreign puppet shows, which are suitable for summer venues. However, as this year the festival celebrates its jubilee 30^th, the organisers are paying special attention to the long tradition of this international event. The organizers focused, among other things, on the history of the festival, inviting groups that have performed at the festival in the past. Maribor will host puppeteers from ten countries and will also pay homage to history in the accompanying program.

Theatres and groups from Slovenia, Israel, Czech Republic, Estonia, Austria, Italy and other countries will this year perform in 20 performances. The rich history of the festival shows that up to now, more than two thousand performers from more than thirty different countries have performed at the festival.  The central venue will display the flags of all 36 countries that have been represented in three festival decades so far. These were made by children at the holiday workshops of the Friends of Youth Association Maribor.

Performances will be held in diverse venues of the Puppet Theatre Maribor which is known as a beautiful and diverse special venue in the destination: Auditorium, Vošjašniški trg Square in front of the Theatre, Great Hall, Small Hall, Minorite Church, as well as in the Art Gallery Maribor and in the Maribor City Park’s Art Camp. The festival accompanying exhibition will , through exposed photographs, a statistical review of the history of the festival, all 30 program sheets and other attractions, show the importance of the festival, which has already hosted 715 performances and tens of thousands of visitors in the special venue located in Maribor’s city centre.