How to attend the Vienna New Year’s Concert? A raffle available to everyone (prices between 25 and 1,200 euros)

The New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic is one of the most important events of these holidays. An event loaded with symbolism and class, but which is available to everyone through an international draw that begins next January. If you want to attend next year’s concert, write down the following indications, you have three opportunities.

Due to high demand, tickets for the three traditional Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s concerts are being raffled. In this way, music lovers from all over the world have an equal opportunity to purchase these much-desired tickets. Between February 1 and 29, 2020, is when applications are accepted to participate in the 2020/21 Year-End Concert Ticket Giveaway: Preview (December 30, 2020, 11:00 am), the New Year’s Eve Concert (December 31, 2020, 7:30 pm) and the New Year’s Concert (January 1, 2021, 11:15 am).

The first step is to register a user account on the web portal of the Vienna Philharmonic. This registration can be done at any time and is independent of the application period to participate in the draw for tickets for the New Year’s Concert. After your user account has been registered, you can make your request for New Year’s Concert tickets during the application period in the ‘My Account’ area, using the ‘New Year’s Concert Ticket Giveaway’ tab. Here you can specify for which concerts and in which categories you want to apply. You can apply for each of the three concerts.

The number of tickets for the New Year’s Concert is limited to two, and the number of tickets for the Preview and New Year’s Eve Concert may be up to four. Ticket prices range from €35 to €1,200 for the New Year’s Concert, €25 to €860 for the New Year’s Eve Concert, and €20 to €495 for the preview. The program is the same for all three concerts.

Within the one-month application period, the actual time of the application is irrelevant. A request made on February 1 has the same chances as a request made on February 29.

The Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Concert 2020

This year’s edition will be conducted under the baton of Andris Nelsons, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. It will be the first time that Nelsons, who since 2010 have been music partner of the Vienna Philharmonic, has staged this prestigious international event, which will be broadcast in more than 90 countries and will be followed by up to 40 million viewers worldwide.

Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Andris Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter with the Latvian National Opera Orchestra before studying conducting. He was Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 2008-2015, Principal Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonic in Herford, Germany 2006-2009 and Music Director of the Latvian National Opera 2003-2007.

A small historical tour of the New Year’s Concert

The New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has been held every year since 1941, on the morning of January 1, in the Great Hall or Golden Hall of the Musical Society, the Vienna Musikverein.

According to tradition, the music is mainly from the Strauss family: Johann Strauss Sr., his sons Johann, Josef, and Eduard, and his son, Johann Strauss III. After the main program, the concert always ends with several encores. Then the musicians collectively wish a Happy New Year (Prosit Neujahr) and play the waltz from ‘The Blue Danube’ by Johann Strauss Jr., ending with the ‘Radetzky March’ by Johannn Strauss Sr.

In recent years, masters such as Daniel Barenboim, Georges Prêtre, Franz Welser-Möst, Zubin Mehta and Mariss Jansons have been invited to conduct this concert. Since 1959 it has been a production of the Austrian television ORF, currently in HD and in co-production with the European Radio-Television Union (UER-EBU-Eurovision), which broadcasts it to some 90 countries around the world, with an average audience of 50 million viewers and a potential of 1,000 million.

In Spain, as usual, it will be broadcast from 11.15 on La 1 HD, RTVE.es and TVE Internacional Europa.