New Year's Eve Market Kapuzinerplanken Mannheim

Market for the quiet week between Christmas and New Year's Eve

Mannheim is the only major German city with its own New Year's Eve market — a market format specifically designed for the days between Christmas and the New Year. From December 27 to 31, 2026, Kapuzinerplanken in squares O5 and O6 will be transformed into a winter meeting place for Mannheim residents and visitors from the Rhine-Neckar region. The organizer is VTM Mannheim (Events — Tourism — Marketing), which also organizes the Christmas market on Kapuzinerplanken.

White tents and starry sky

The market's concept is visually special: instead of typical Christmas market stalls, white tents are used, set up under a starry sky light design — the atmosphere is brighter, more festive, and more focused on the turn of the year than a classic Christkindlmarkt. Around 30 carefully selected exhibitors present arts and crafts, unique items, and culinary delights with a New Year's Eve theme.

Lucky cent campaign with chimney sweeps

A special feature of the market is the lucky cent campaign: chimney sweeps symbolically distribute luck in the form of lucky cents to visitors and collect donations in return for the "German Leukemia Research Aid Campaign for Children with Cancer — Mannheim Local Chapter e.V." A traditional custom — the chimney sweep as a bringer of good luck for the new year — is combined here with concrete charitable aid.

Mannheim, the city of squares

With around 314,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg and the urban center of the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. The city center is divided into numerical and alphabetical blocks according to the famous grid system — squares O5 and O6 are located in the middle of the "Planken" pedestrian zone, the city's central shopping axis. The Kapuzinerplanken form a microcosm of Mannheim's festival culture: both the special Christmas market (Nov 23–Dec 24) and the New Year's Eve market (Dec 27–31) take place here, with both markets under white tents in the same location.