asphalt is a place of art and empathy and a festival of passion and emotion that has an impact far beyond Düsseldorf. Every year since 2012, the ‘Summer Festival of the Arts’ has presented a dense and exciting programme of theatre, music, dance, performance, literature and art in Düsseldorf. Over the years, the festival has become a crowd puller with broad media coverage and is perceived nationwide as an important cultural platform. It is directed by theatre director Christof Seeger-Zurmühlen and composer Bojan Vuletic, who founded asphalt.

“Get out of the theatre, into the city” is asphalt’s original idea. Art is for everyone and it has to deal with what people and society are currently concerned with. Art is relevant and must take place – not in an ivory tower, but in the middle of life, whether on a small stage, a big stage, indoors or outdoors. Since its launch, asphalt has therefore presented its programme not only in established theatres and concert halls, but above all in special places that are temporarily transformed into venues for the duration of the festival, each with its own magic – including former industrial sites, museums, churches, private rooms, office buildings, streets and squares in public spaces, or even a floating lake stage in a park in the centre of the city. Every year we can look forward to seeing where art will enrich the urban environment thanks to asphalt.

asphalt not only presents national and international guest performances, but also co-produces new artistic works. In this way, it contributes to the networking of artists and the creation of new art. The festival sees itself as a production platform that initiates and co-finances the development of new artistic works. Since 2012, almost 100 co-productions in the fields of theatre, music and dance have been created, which began at asphalt and have since been shown in many other theatres, concert halls and at festivals. Pioneering asphalt co-productions in recent years include ‘TANZ’ and ‘Ophelia’s Got Talent’ by Florentina Holzinger and the play ‘Verrückt nach Trost’ with Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung, Ursina Lardi and Devid Striesow, which director Thorsten Lensing realised together with asphalt and the Salzburg Festival.

The asphalt Festival also maintains close collaborations with other cultural institutions and festivals, locally, nationally and internationally. From 2025, for example, the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus will leave its four stages at Gustaf-Gründgens-Platz to the asphalt Festival for the next few years during the last week of its season. asphalt will present outstanding national and international co-productions, guest performances and concerts at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus during this week. This means that an international programme from the performing arts sector can be experienced at the D’haus in the last week of the season, which will appeal to an additional audience. Thanks to the cooperation, the asphalt Festival has the planning security to invite major theatre productions with several years’ lead time and to be able to present them with optimal technical conditions.

asphalt Festival opens up spaces for artistic experiences and encounters, for new discourses and social developments. It is thus, in the best sense of the word, a people’s festival of the arts, in the city, for the nation and for a diverse society.