20 things you absolutely NEED to do to make the most out of July in Vienna

The young festival that is dedicated to showcasing Sound art, Sonic Territories, will be turning up at Seestadt in the first week of July.

For three days (beginning Thursday), you’ll be able to experience sound installations and other performances that have sound as the medium and the theme, ‘Life is good in the new real?’, as their focus.

The chunky part of the festival will be taking place at night. There will be live sets from Viennese club icons as well as some international guests!

So, if you’re into sound and are obsessed with what you can do with your ears, check out the Sonic Territorries programme!

Vienna looooves its wine and during this time of the year, a big part of the city can be found up on the wine hills surrounding the city, throwing back bottles of the liquid of the Gods and cooling in the shade of well tangled vines.

For beginners, head out to the 19th district’s area of Grinzing and pick from the many nice Heurige gardens aligning the streets. There, you can sit and enjoy the local, self-produced wine, that you must pair with some unpretentious but tasty Schmankerl (a snack made of cold cuts, cheese and spreads). Some Heuriger have a hot buffet to choose some limited but carefully selected Austrian dishes.

For a more authentic and non-touristy wine expedition, head out to Stammersdorf where you can follow our tipsy-tips for a full experience.

The fun doesn’t stop here: the areas around Vienna are packed with Heurige, so anytime you want to be surrounded by grape vines, check out our guide to the wine growing and Heurige-hosting regions around Vienna.

And in case you want to brush up your Heurige-Know-How before heading out to one of them, we’ve got some facts about Heurige we bet you didn’t know.

We are not ones to complain, but we’ll admit summer in Vienna can be a hot and sticky affair. And not in the good way. If you don’t have the time or the energy to go to the Donau or a pool, try having a real urban summer moment. Because what’s better than having a summer moment in one of the best summer cities? – Why? Check out our article on why Vienna is an awesome summer city!

Suggested scenario: visit your own/one of your friends’ terrace, roof or balcony, get in your sunbathing gear, slurp on some Radler out of a can, cool yourself off with a spray bottle and let your gaze wander over the city. Does it for us, everytime. Every. God. Damn. Time.

During July and August, you may start to see shops putting up signs stating they’ll be back in September and you may start to notice a lot of your emails bouncing back with holiday auto-replies. This is Vienna’s infamous ‘Sommerloch in action.

In tackling the Sommerloch, we highy recommend respecting the Sommerloch. Take it easy, don’t bother people with unnecessary emails, don’t expect people to react quickly to anything, and don’t take local news too seriously (they have to write about something other than the weather).

After a long dry spell, Vienna’s famous art and culture institutions are back and there’s a raft of exhibitions you should check out.

To find cool exhibitions that are happening in Vienna right now, check out our The Arts Section!

P.S.: You don’t have to be interested in culture to visit a museum, to be honest – sometimes, we just visit one to escape the summer heat! (Air conditioning in exhibitions = surviving summer)

It doesn’t take much to spend an amazing evening at the Donaukanal. And we suggest you spend a bit of time down there by the waterside during August. Make sure to follow our list of the DOs and DON’Ts so you truly enjoy the Donaukanal to the max during the summer and check out our ultimate guide to what’s happening on the Donaukanal in 2022!

Open air cinemas are one of the highlights of the summer season in this city. No more pondering for movie lovers on whether to stay in or head out. Open air cinemas offer those who get their tan from a movie screen a great way to spend an evening outside. Vienna offers a variety of open air cinemas, each screening a different flavour of film.

We’ve gathered the best open-air cinemas you can visit in Vienna, so be sure to check out our article!

Vienna’s fantastic arts and culture scene will be on display as part of the city-wide Kultursommer festival. With a diverse (and huge) programme, there’s something to see for all – even a garden concert in front of retirement homes for all the Omas and Opas living there! We love this concept! If you’re a culture vulture and you know what’s good for you then be sure to check out the programme.

For this exhibition the students of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna explored nature as a tool for art production. For that, they visited various Austrian national parks and interviewed experts and caretakers about the matter. As a result, you can now admire sculptures, paintings, prints, videos and performances at the Kunst Haus Wien.

It’s that time again when the beloved city’s beer brewery, Ottakringer Brauerei, comes to life for summer, as they’ve set up the Ottakringer Bierfest.

Most importantly, if you ask us, there will be lots of beer flowing – different kinds of beer produced in their brewery, to be specific.

This year, there will even be something called ‘beer yoga’ (however that’s supposed to work). So be sure to come by and enjoy a fresh cold beer from their broad assortment while doing… yoga.

To check out what will be happening, have a look at the programme for more details.

If you’re going to endure a sticky Vienna summer, you might as well do it while also getting in shape, getting bendy, finding your inner peace while soaking up the sun and fresh(ish?) air, and taking in amazing views by signing up to some outdoor yoga classes!

When a former royal garden opens up for the entertainment of us peasants, like the garden of the Palais Schwarzenberg is doing for the summer-long Theater im Park, it might be time to dust off that suit and dress you got in the back of your closet. Ok, you won’t need to dress up for this as it’s a nice casual affair. A good dose of culture, theater and cabaret is going to be served up to you right in the park under the stars if you buy a ticket for one of the shows going on all summer. Check out their programme!

Vienna’s dance festival of all dance festivals, ImPulsTanz, is back in 2022 and they’ve sure got a lot of workshops and performances lined up that are worth doing your happy dance about.

There will be multiple performances and hundreds of workshops. So get your dancing pants on and get yourself tickets for one of the performances or register for one of the classes.

Check out the Impulstanz programme.

Good to know: The ImPulsTanz Festival also hosts special club nights to celebrate the festivities at the Burgtheater Vestibül. All in the name of the ImPulsTanz Social Festivallounge, which has different themes for every event. Be sure to check it out!

The pictures of former head photographer of the French Vogue, George Hoyningen-Huene, and his lover, muse and talented colleague Horst P. Horst are currently exhibited at Westlicht.

On display are rarely shown vintage prints, old Vogue magazines and a detailed glimpse into the artists’ work, who became two of the most influential fashion photographers of the 20th century.

Ah, the joys of living in Vienna. There is something quite unique going on every summer in this city’s heart, right at the Rathausplatz. From July to September a great variety of concerts ranging from classic ballets, operas and Jazz to Pop and dance will be shown on a huge screen in front of the Rathaus. For free, we might add.

There’s a huge screen installed in front of the beautiful town hall, with enough seats to accommodate a small village from Vorarlberg. The films begin at sundown. However, from 11am onwards, there are a plethora of food stands (this year, it’s 22 in total), featuring cuisine from around the globe. We feel like you can find nearly anything from every corner of this world there. It’s a culinary heaven!

So enjoy sitting in the shade, have a Spritzer and wait for the film to begin. Throughout the summer, most films will be played twice. Most nights, there are also live performances of some sort before the screenings. Check out the full programme.

Two of Vienna’s most loved culture initiatives have joined forces to present a huge exhibition at the gorgeous gardens of Palais Auersberg. In an area of 5000 square meters you’ll get to marvel at the works of both established and upcoming sculptors.

Next to the sculpture garden there will also be something to cater to your culinary needs as the Palais Freiluft pop up is happening there too. Because we all know, looking at art makes hungry/thirsty. Or is it just us?

‘Tis the season to be… outdoors, and in light of this fantastic news, the Silent Disco event series of Vienna is making the necessary arrangements. Ditching the red brick walls of the WUK and taking the headbanging headphone party to the wall-less, roof-less outdoor venue of Strandbar Herrmann.

If you don’t know the drill, you put on a pair of headphones, choose from two different channels on which two different DJs are feeding their mixes, and dance along with the music like nobody’s watching.

If you are missing out on festivals this year, fear not! The Afrika Tage is here to provide. It’s exactly the festival you’d expect it to be – colourful, full of music and food. This festival is happening on the Donauinsel and is a great opportunity to immerse yourself in another culture. Check out more info and the programme on their website!

Tip: The prices on the other days vary, so check out their website.

Do something different this year when you’re going for a swim in the Danube and try one of these Vienna-inspired dives from the video below.  It will be fun, we promise. Jumping into the water like a boring person is so last year, anyway.

We always get excited when concerts and open-air happenings are taking place at Karlsplatz! Nothing makes us more aware that we live in a hip urban city that has a long history of getting drunk and dancing wild to Pop concerts. And our favorite four-day festival that has us doing exactly that described above is the poppety-Popfest! This festival is the number one to be at if you want to get deep and intimate with the local music scene, with big to up-and-coming local bands taking to the stage every year. Check out the detailed programme for this year. There’s nothing like having an Open-Air-Concert!