Our History

We already know that it is Hungary’s turn to propose a European Capital of Culture for 2023, and that our city’s leaders have made a decision to run for the title. This year’s ECoCs are Wroclaw from Poland and San Sebastian from Spain. Otto Fenyvesi’s writing is published under the title  ᷈We Must Put an End to Closing Ourselves Up and Gazing at Our Navels”. We do not know what inspired his piece but these are important thoughts: it is this type of sincerity and sagacity that our bid team is driven by. Son of Saul receives an Oscar, which fills us with hope, and then the British decide to leave the EU at the Brexit referendum, which makes us feel low.

Aarhus from Denmark and Paphos from Cyprus are holding the European Capital of Culture title. The Art Council is established, the 2023 caption is placed on the church hillside at the end of Kossuth Street, and most importantly: Veszprém is going to run jointly with the Bakony-Balaton region at the ECoC bid. The visual style guide is presented; Tom Jones comes to broaden our musical horizon at VeszprémFest, and  L’Entourloop from France at the Street Music Festival.

We have won! Of course, this is announced as late as 14th December, so moments of overwhelming joy and the Street Celebration are preceded by a few important steps. From January it is Leeuwarden, the centre of Friesland in the Netherlands and the Maltese capital Valletta that become European Capitals of Culture. In February we are selected for the second round of the bid, which we celebrate by inviting Jan Gehl (former Chief Architect of Coppenhagen) to support our team. Veszprém-Balaton 2023 JSC is established in June, with one single employee: Zoltán Mészáros, our first CEO. At the end of August Óváros (Old Town) Square is transformed into an open-air cinema, while autumn sees the first Veszprém Design Week: Paradigma Ariadné Studio make their entry with the  ᷈12 Walls” exhibition claiming international media attention. On 12th December the jury which decides about the ECoC title visits Veszprém: in retrospect we know that they had a good time with us.

We feast our eyes on the Bulgarian Plovdiv and Matera, Italy, eager to learn from them. Ági Madarász becomes the JLC’s second employee, so now we have a person to carry out our programmes! Summer again passes with the enchantment of festivals; female energies explode at VeszprémFest (Caro Emerald and Katie Melua) and at Street Music (Lola Marsh). We are taken up into the network of cultural and creative cities, but what is perhaps even more important is we receive the  ‘City of Music’ title from UNESCO. There is Design Week for the second time in Veszprém with ’The Face, the Pool, the Two Towers and the Ruin’ exhibition. International reception goes down even better this time: we hit the print edition of the Italian Elle Decor magazine and ArchDaily also writes about us. The first Veszprém Pecha Kucha and the likewise initial Civil Forum run with packed houses. Our new visual style is created and the Óváros (Old Town) Square Ice Rink opens. Just before year’s end we receive the news that Veszprém is the most liveable country town in Hungary (both Otthon Centrum and we assert this), and we are also informed that we are a first-rate location for live music events, nationwide. The team is in the building: we are nearly twenty at the year closing party.

Travelling to Rijeka and Galway, European Capitals of Culture 2020, we already survey the opening events to learn from them. As many as 25 team members sit and listen attentively to leaders’ strategy presentations at the year opening workshop. Our office opens at one end of Kossuth Street, Neil Peterson comes to Veszprém again, and our Volunteer programme strategy is also made ready. At the beginning of February, the number of sunny hours nears that of summer days, so Óváros Square Ice Rink closes down. Despite the unusually warm weather, we count 6 300 visitors, which means that more than 10% of Veszprém’s population skated at our place. At the end of February Zoli Mészáros leaves as CEO of VEB 2023 Jlc., giving his position over to Alíz Markovits. Culture bistro Papírkutya (Paper Dog) opens with Ian Siegal’s farewell concert, and a string of performances by celebrated European street musicians follows. Then Paper Dog has to close down because of COVID-19, like every other place across the country. Hungary restarts in June, even if only partially. After the massive initial wave of cancellations, the culture sector is being revived, with countless festivals and events held at modified dates. VeszprémFest 2020 is unfortunately called off but it is compensated for by Filmpicnic, a chamber version of the Street Music Festival, Rosé, Riesling and Jazz Days, Auer Festival, Festival of the DANCE, Kőfeszt, Music Hungary, Hamvas Days, and the Quasimodo Poetry Competition. It is special joy to see our Shinies, ECoC’s volunteers, working with us at some events. We look forward to autumn with grand plans, only for these to be washed away by the second wave of COVID-19. Yet this does not bring us down at all: we promptly start planning for 2021, albeit from our desks at home.

Although the shadow of the crown virus is still casting a shadow over our plans, we will be launching several projects during the summer and autumn. These include Hangjáték, Veszprém's new music development programme, which aims to provide professionally relevant music education and programmes for young and old alike, showcasing the most superb fences on Lake Balaton thanks to Beyond Forms, and launching the Cholnoky project, which will showcase one of the region's most important dynasties through a programme of all-round arts. 2023Podcast and its radio mentoring programme will also be launched. In July, the EKF's red and white wines and sparkling wines will be selected at the Balaton Wine Competition, and we are feverishly looking for our Experience Commissioners to contribute to the improvement of our events as EKF Quality Controllers. We are also getting involved in the festival season with our own events and several of our partner events in the region and mobilising people in the area. We are also launching VEB VELED, Together Smarter and Common Names to help our bid partners and provide useful knowledge to those interested in the programme, and our sponsorship roundtable, Teríték, will be presented at the Sellyei Winery in Nemesgulács. And that's not all! We're launching a repohar design competition, organising a flash mob in Veszprém, and a regional roadshow. In Veszprém, the development of the Jutasi úti housing estate is in full swing with joint efforts: in the framework of community planning, we are actively discussing with the residents of the estate. 

By 2022, all our thoughts were on preparing for the ECoC programme year. The year saw an increase in the number of partners and the launch of several major events. Among other things, we explored the unique world of the Inota Thermal Power Plant at Inota Festival and, with the aim of creating a tradition, we held the Balaton Wine & Gourmet Festival in Veszprém for the first time. We increased the number of venues for our Barn Programme to 14, selected ECoC wines and sparkling wines and ventured into the fringes of literature at Off-Season Literary Festival. Several infrastructural projects were started or reached their milestones during the year, including Ruttner House in Veszprém, Modern Art Gallery in Balatonfüred and Krypton House in Ajka. Meanwhile, we were busy preparing for the opening of the ECoC year, with rehearsals for our grand opening ceremony and the groundwork for a number of 2023 events already underway. 

On 2nd January, the first working day of the year, we were excited to get down to business. We had less than 3 weeks to go until the opening ceremony, which started the year with not just one performance, but a weekend-long programme of cultural events, concerts and exhibitions. From 17th to 22nd January, thousands of people celebrated the festival of creativity in Veszprém and the Bakony-Balaton region. We were all touched when the opening ceremony started on 21st January, when we heard the first words and melodies, looking back on the work, the experiences and the anticipation that preceded the year. We laughed, talked, danced, sang, made music and sometimes even got annoyed. In the end, we met at over 3,000 events, including a number of unconventional activities. We had a 2023 HUF ECoC train ticket to promote public transport for our flagship events, and the V-Bikes installed that year helped us get around Veszprém in a more environmentally friendly way. Throughout the year, the towns and villages that joined the Regional Show offered thematic events: insights into the region's milling culture and literary concerts in out-of-the-ordinary spaces, ecological programmes to learn all about the protection of Lake Balaton and its environment, the Hungarian Choral Convention to learn about the power of singing, and Veszprém Blues Festival and Veszprém Jazz Festival to host outstanding international representatives of the genres. Several buildings and institutions in Veszprém and the region were also revitalised during the year: galleries and community spaces were given new functions and hosted a wide range of events. These include Gyárkert (Factory'ard) CulturePark, ActiCity Dance and Movement Centre and FOTON Audiovisual Centre. Halfway through the year, in June, we celebrated the successes of the first few months and hosted the Halftime Festival, where hundreds of us sat down to eat, drink and chat around a very long table at Long Table Picnic and enjoyed a full weekend of unforgettable concerts in Gyárkert. Life didn't come to a standstill after the summer ended: we moved the region with hundreds of events in autumn and winter, and rounded off the year with a winter wonderland. We brought this special year to a fitting close with a series of events, including Nativity plays, Christmas markets, sledging and skating in Winter Gyárkert, concerts and New Year's Eve celebrations. Of course, this is only a snippet of what we experienced in the 2023 ECoC year; it is impossible to describe everything that happened over 365 days. But one thing is for sure: this period has left an indelible mark not only in our memories, but also in the everyday life of Veszprém and the Bakony-Balaton region, as the unique legacy of the VEB2023 ECoC programme stays with us after 2023.