Program Description Festival Funding (Round 4)

The funding program “Festival Support Fund” is aimed at music festivals nationwide.

Music festivals provide artists an important platform for freely presenting their music and advancing their careers through direct interaction with the audience. Artistic freedom is therefore the starting point for this program and remains central to its design. At music festivals, artists can further develop their artistic profile, try out new things, and gauge their audience’s response. Music festivals also hold economic potential, making them an indispensable part of the music scene and music industry—as well as the cultural and creative sectors as a whole—for promoters and booking agencies, as the 2025 festival study shows. At the same time, festivals play an important social role. Especially in rural areas, festivals are often the only cultural offerings and serve as inspiring places beyond everyday life, making them anchor points for a democratic community.

Moreover, they represent a significant source of income for artists, and play—particularly for emerging talent—an essential role in artistic development. Live music continues to grow in importance for musicians, in part due to the rise of AI-generated music, and is therefore particularly worthy of support.

This funding programme therefore focuses on small and medium-sized music festivals that stand out for their distinctive artistic programming and their role in cultural and social structures, particularly in non-urban areas. For this reason, the program is primarily aimed at music festivals in rural or non-urban areas (counties and small towns with up to 100,000 residents): To contribute to equal living conditions in urban and rural areas, at least 70 percent of the selected festivals must take place in non-urban areas.

The funding comes from the budget of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.

Federal states and municipalities are to be encouraged by the Festival Support Fund to expand their support in this area and to initiate new projects or secure existing ones.

The Festival Support Fund provides funding for the implementation of festival projects in 2027 (or, for festivals taking place in January or February in 2028 as well).

Funding is intended for measures aimed at implementing the festival’s musical program and overall curatorial concept. These must be explained in the funding application and will also serve as a key basis for the jury’s evaluation during the project selection process (see Section 5). Particular attention will be given to:

• the artistic quality of the programming (taking into account, among other things, the originality of the program selection, artistic diversity, unique or innovative artistic approaches, and the promotion of artistic collaborations; where applicable, also the festival’s development compared to previous years or to other music festivals)
• the support of emerging musicians
• Outstanding commitment to including groups underrepresented in the music industry in the program planning
• Support for and integration of regional structures (including volunteer initiatives and helpers, economic and tourism partnerships, and the booking of regional artists)

In addition, initiatives in the following areas

• inclusion, integration, participation, and accessibility
• sustainability
• cultural programming / educational formats / fostering democracy
• networking / partnerships with other festivals

are also eligible for funding.

The funded project must include activities that have a clear connection to the musical program and the overall curatorial concept, and thus constitutes a clearly definable part of the entire festival project (festivals with a total budget of up to approximately 100,000 EUR may also be submitted as a single project). The planned activities must be explained in the project description of the funding application and listed as corresponding expense items in the budget.

This includes the following types of expenses:

• Project management / curation / general administration with a plausible project-related connection
• Fees for artists and creatives
• Travel and lodging expenses
• Event and production expenses (including services)
• Investments with a justified project-related connection
• Promotion and marketing
• Other expenses related to the planned festival edition

(For more information, see the FAQ (in German only).)

Projects that receive funding of 50 percent or more under this program must meet the following requirement:

For services provided by professional freelance artists or creatives on a fee basis, fees must be set at a level that at least corresponds to a relevant, up-to-date nationwide recommendation on minimum fees issued by professional associations, trade groups, or interest groups of artists and creatives (see FAQ (in German only) for details).

Even if the funding rate is less than 50 percent, care should be taken to ensure that fees are appropriate. In particular, the size of the festival and the specific artistic performance should be taken into account.

Institutional funding cannot be provided under this program. Institutional funding refers to financing the infrastructure or ongoing operations of existing or newly planned institutions (e.g. venues, ensembles, associations, federations, foundations). Construction measures are likewise excluded.

An administrative flat fee (project-related overhead costs) may be included provided that the necessity is clearly justified and it is clearly distinguished from the other requested expense items; however, it may not exceed 5 percent of the recognized eligible project expenses.

Eligible applicants are music festival organizers who meet the following formal criteria:

• self-employed individuals engaged in business as well as legally recognized entities with their registered office in Germany
• organizers of music festivals in Germany
• An organizer is defined as the party holding primary artistic, organizational, and financial responsibility for the festival.
• Organizers who stage a festival at their own venue are also eligible, provided the festival is clearly distinct from the venue’s regular program and all other eligibility requirements are met (see FAQ (in German only) for details).
• The festival may be genre-specific or cross-genre, and may be held with or without admission fees. The musical program may encompass all areas of popular music, including jazz, or—if cross-genre—classical music as well. Festivals whose programs consist exclusively of classical music are excluded from funding.
• The festival must already have been held at least once under the main responsibility of the applicant, and another edition must be planned for 2027 (or 2008, for festivals taking place in January or February). The reference year for eligibility is the year of the last festival edition, but no earlier than 2024.
• Newly established festivals are also eligible. In such cases, applicants must provide proof of substantial prior activity in primary organizing live music events (e.g. a concert series) (see FAQ (in German only) for details).
• For the reference year, the festival must demonstrate a coherent, curated program under a single name, comprising at least five live music events (artists with their own repertoire and/or artistic DJs) (see FAQ (in German only) for details).
• The festival must have been open to the public in the reference year and must also be publicly accessible in the funding year.
• In the reference year, the festival must have taken place in Germany within a period of no more than three months. Same applies for the planned festival in the funding year.
• Only one application per applicant company or festival may be submitted in each funding round.
• Festivals that have received funding from the Festival Support Fund three times in a row are excluded from the application process in this round.
• The festival must not be primarily financed with public funds. Specifically, the organizing company or organization must not have received more than 40 percent of its total basic funding for the reference year from public sources. Non-profit organizations are exempt from this restriction (see FAQ (in German only) for details).
• Projects that have already begun or been completed are not eligible for funding. Therefore, work on the project must not have begun before the funding agreement with Initiative Musik is finalized. This means that no service or supply contracts may have been signed yet. However, planning required in advance is permitted and does not count as the start of a project.
• Events that disseminate unconstitutional, unlawful, or criminal content, or whose programming emphasizes content harmful to minors, are excluded from funding.
• As a funding platform committed to equality, diversity, and cultural participation in music, Initiative Musik also reserves the right to question the funding eligibility of music festivals that disseminate or provide a platform for inhumane or extremist content or ideologies of inequality, and to withdraw a funding commitment (see Guidelines of Initiative Musik).

Funding is provided only for projects that cannot be implemented—or cannot be implemented to the necessary extent—without this funding.

Funding is provided as a one-time, project-specific grant covering a portion of the costs (see the FAQ (in German only) for more details).

The funding amounts to up to 70% of the recognized eligible expenses of the funded project, up to a maximum of 50,000 EUR, but not exceeding the actual funding gap for the entire festival project.

In this case, the required contribution from the applicant (including any third-party funding) must be at least 30%. The total specific project expenses should not exceed 100,000 EUR. Exceptions are possible.

The minimum grant amount from the Festival Support Fund is 10,000 EUR (subject to fulfillment of the eligibility requirements listed here).

Funding is provided only for the specific project, including the measures or expenses that were requested and deemed eligible for funding.

Plausible information must be provided regarding the festival’s estimated total revenue in order to determine the actual funding shortfall that cannot be covered by other means.

The contribution of internal and third-party funds, as well as the acquisition of additional funding—for example, from states and municipalities—for the festival project as a whole or for the specific project for which funding is being requested is encouraged.

It is essential to ensure that project expenses funded by the Festival Support Fund are not overfunded and that the application process and financial reporting for the entire festival project are transparent. If the festival project generates a surplus upon final accounting, the funding from the Festival Support Fund will be reduced proportionally based on its share of the actual total revenue.

The funding application must be submitted to Initiative Musik in digital form. The provided application form must be completed on the online application portal and submitted exclusively online. Details regarding type and scope must be taken from the form. The procedures for applying are described in detail in the FAQ (in German only).

The online application period runs from October 6, 2026 (12:00 p.m.) through October 27, 2026 (12:00 p.m.).

Only complete and formally correct applications will be considered in the subsequent application process. Applications are considered complete only when all necessary documents for reviewing and evaluating the project have been submitted. Complete applications that have successfully passed the formal preliminary review will be submitted to a jury of experts for evaluation.

Grant applications are evaluated and recommended for funding exclusively on the basis of the submitted documents by an independent expert jury. The expert jury is intended to represent a diverse range of artistic and personal perspectives.

The criteria used by the expert jury in evaluating and selecting projects are:

• the festival’s musical program and overall curatorial concept in accordance with Section 2
• the impact of the planned measures on the project’s objective and their financial adequacy
• the significance of the festival, particularly for the cultural offerings in the region
• positive effects on the German (popular) music scene and the cultural and creative industries

Zudem wird bei der Projektauswahl berücksichtigt:

• mindestens 70 % der Projekte sind im nicht-urbanen Raum
• auf kleine und mittlere Festivals mit max. 15.000 Besucher:innen entfallen mindestens 95 % des Budgets
• die ausgewählten Festivals sollen bundesweit angemessen verteilt sein
• angemessenes Verhältnis zwischen im Vorjahr nicht geförderten und bereits geförderten Festivals.

The jury will not provide a statement on its selection.

The Supervisory Board of Initiative Musik gGmbH will decide on the allocation of funds based on the jury’s recommendation, subject to the determination of eligible expenses during the application review process by Initiative Musik. The decision of Initiative Musik gGmbH is final. Legal recourse is excluded.

Funding is granted through the digital execution of a private-law funding agreement exclusively on a case-by-case basis. It is a one-time grant and does not entitle the recipient to further funding or an increase in the amount of funding.

Funded projects must take place within the project period. This period generally begins upon the signing of the funding contract (but no earlier than the submission of the funding application, provided that an early start to the project has been requested and approved, with justification for the necessity of this exception) and ends on February 29, 2028, for all recipients of funding in this funding round.

Further details are specified in the General Funding Conditions and the Funding Principles of Initiative Musik.

After completion of the project, Initiative Musik will check, on the basis of a statement of expenditure to be submitted, whether the project was carried out and the funds used in accordance with the application and the contract (for more information, see the FAQ (in German only) or the relevant grant agreement).

The terms and conditions of the funding program described here come into effect on the date of their publication and apply until December 31, 2029.