8,000 guests at the start of Festival Ibug in Chemnitz

More visitors than expected came to the start of the Ibug street art festival in Chemnitz. On the first two days, around 8,000 art fans and curious visitors viewed the opening of the exhibition of this year's "industrial wasteland transformation" in the former hospital at the Stadtpark in the south of Chemnitz, according to the organizers. Around 70 artists and collectives from Germany and abroad had transformed the area of more than 16,000 square meters with three buildings into a gallery for urban art.

Humpy start due to lack of building permit

The 20th edition of the festival, which is taking place this year as part of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 programme, started a day late. Due to a lack of planning permission, the opening planned for last Friday had to be postponed to Saturday.

Since the noughties, the street art festival Ibug - short for Industriebrachenumgestaltung - has become a permanent fixture in Saxony. It takes place every year at different locations. This year, with Chemnitz as the European Capital of Culture, it is taking place in a building that once served as the headquarters of the Auto-Union and later as a hospital until 1997. The works that the artists have created especially for this location can still be seen over the next two weekends.