Sprungbrett-Festival

A Springboard for Young Talents

If you want to see what Leverkusen's youth has created in schools, music schools, and youth centers, come to the Sprungbrett-Festival. Curated by the Municipal Education Office of the City of Leverkusen, the festival showcases local youth culture work — a consistently low-threshold format that presents school ensembles, choirs, and orchestras to a broader public.

Grand Opening Evening at the Forum

The kick-off is on Friday, June 26, 2026, from 6 PM to 8 PM, with the grand Opening Evening at the Forum Leverkusen, Great Hall. The city's youth ensembles will perform in rapid succession on stage: a school theater excerpt, a youth choir contribution, a modern dance group, a school orchestra, a student cabaret, a cover band from music lessons, a string quartet from the music school's gifted program. Each ensemble gets about 5–10 minutes of stage time — enough to convey a clear picture of the quality and diversity of Leverkusen's youth culture scene.

Four Genres — Theater, Cabaret, Dance, Music

The festival covers four genres: Theater (school performances, improvisation groups), Cabaret (student comedy, satirical theater), Dance (youth ballet, hip-hop crews, modern dance theater groups), and Music (choirs, orchestras, cover bands, soloists). This breadth reflects the diversity of cultural education offerings in Leverkusen and shows that youth culture is not just pop and hip-hop, but also classical music, theater, and dialect cabaret.

Forum Leverkusen — City Culture Center

The venue is the Forum Leverkusen at Büchelter Hof 9 — the municipal cultural center with a Great Hall (approx. 1,300 seats), studio stage, conference rooms, and exhibition space. The Forum is a central performance venue for the Leverkusen Jazz Days, the stARTfestival, many classical concerts, and civic events. For young people making their first major stage appearance here, it is a significant step — hence the festival name Sprungbrett (springboard).

Low-Threshold and Accessible

The festival is consistently low-threshold: free admission, no registration required, families welcome. The Great Hall is wheelchair accessible with four wheelchair spaces and ramp access. This accessibility is part of the Education Office's commitment to enabling cultural participation for all citizens.

In the Context of Leverkusen's Youth Culture

The Sprungbrett-Festival is part of Leverkusen's broad commitment to youth culture: music schools (Musikschule Leverkusen with approx. 3,000 students), youth centers (Lindenhof, Forum Junges Theater), school clubs, associations. With the Sprungbrett format, these ensembles receive a professional stage and the audience gets a compact overview of the scene. It is both recognition of youth work and promotion of young talent.