From August 21st to 23rd, the Weimar FröHlich Festival returned to Weimar for its second edition. The area around August-Frölich-Platz was temporarily closed to traffic, and for three days the square became exactly what it could always be: a place for people. Street and improv artists, placemaking workshops, food, music, and neighbours who stayed far longer than they probably planned.The FröHlich Platz is one of the local living labs of the European Placemaking Academy (EPA), an Erasmus+ project bringing together organisations from Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Norway to strengthen participatory placemaking across Europe. EPA is built on the idea that public spaces are never neutral: they reflect who is included, who makes decisions, and whose needs are heard. The FröHlich Fest is where that idea stops being theoretical.
Friday set the tone well. We inaugurated this year’s edition by painting the big bench right in front of the church entrance together -a small act, but one that immediately made the space feel shared. The evening closed with an open-air cinema night. We watched the film „Das Gegenteil von Grau” by Matthias Coers & Recht auf Stadt Ruhr, a fitting choice exploring how to shape public space together.
Saturday was the fullest day. The square buzzed with activity: kids’ dance, salsa, freehand drawing, and much more. As CGE, we facilitated an improv theatre workshop with Nataliia and Lolo, and hosted a session exploring what inclusive cities can look like, both activities putting EPA’s participatory placemaking approach into practice right there on the square. And a special thank you to Caritas Café International and Asal from ZLG, who kept everyone fed throughout the day.
Sunday had a different quality to it -slower, warmer, more like a real neighbourhood gathering-. After an open-air Holy Mass, we shared breakfast with neighbours, joined Lindy Hop workshops, freehand drawing, tried henna tattoos, and got haircuts at the solidarity hairdresser. Tanja Krone & Band and Tuba Libre closed the weekend on stage, and by the end, many people who had come to enjoy the festival stayed to help pack everything up. That, perhaps more than anything, said something about what the FröHlich Platz initiative has been building.
This is what participatory placemaking looks like when it works: not a top-down programme, but a neighbourhood that gradually learns to shape its own space.
We’d like to thank all the partners, organizers, neighbours, and artists who took part and made this edition unforgettable. Once more, the festival showed us what a neighbourhood can feel like when it’s shaped by the people living in it, rather than passing through it. This is the spirit behind FröHlich Festival, a place where culture and participation become tools to imagine a more inclusive and connected public life.
See you next edition!