Gmunden rocks Festival

Gmunden Rocks is the biggest open-air music festival on the shores of Lake Traunsee — three nights of outstanding live music in one of the most dramatic natural settings of any festival in Austria. The 2026 lineup brings folkshilfe and LeMO on the opening night, followed by Rian & Josh on the second evening, with Sportfreunde Stiller closing the festival on the third night. Doors open from 6pm each evening, and the combination of diverse musical talent — ranging from Austro-pop to German indie-rock — with the extraordinary lakeside setting makes Gmunden Rocks one of the most enjoyable events on the regional summer calendar.

The festival stage is set on the Rathausplatz right on the Traunsee waterfront, with the shimmering lake as backdrop and the dramatic cliffs of the Traunstein rising above the opposite shore. Few festival stages in Austria offer a natural setting of comparable beauty, and the atmosphere at Gmunden Rocks benefits enormously from this: the sound carrying across the water, the reflections of the stage lights rippling on the surface of the lake, and the sense of being surrounded by mountains and nature even as the crowd fills with energy. This is outdoor music at its most evocative.

Gmunden itself is one of the most elegant and animated towns in the Salzkammergut — a place with genuine culture, excellent restaurants and a relaxed, sophisticated atmosphere that comes from being a lakeside town with a long tradition of welcoming visitors. The town is famous throughout Austria for its ceramics tradition, and the distinctive Gmundner pottery can be found in shops throughout the old town. The Schloss Ort, a medieval castle on an island connected to the shore by a wooden bridge, is one of the most photographed buildings in the region.

From Hallstatt Hideaway, Gmunden is just thirty minutes away — easy to reach for any or all of the three festival evenings. The short, scenic drive along the lakeside road offers beautiful views throughout, and the combination of a great live music experience with the drive home through the Salzkammergut night makes for one of the finest festival evenings the region can offer. Returning to the Hideaway after a night of great music, with the lake quiet and dark below, is a pleasure uniquely available to guests who choose to stay in Hallstatt.