Summer Puppet Pier Festival

Poster for the annual Summer Puppet Pier Festival – International Puppetry Festival in Maribor.

Launched in 1990, the annual Summer Puppet Pier - International Puppetry Festival, Maribor offers a review of recent Slovene puppet creativity activity alongside many foreign performances for both children and adults. The Summer Pier Festival collaborates with several other Slovene puppetry producers and promoters. A children's jury confers the Cat in the Bag Award.

Previous festivals have included performers from Slovenia, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Sweden, Bulgaria and Israel, and even as far away as Iran, Taiwan, China, Brazil, and Japan.

The festival used to take place first at Lent, in the Atrium of Maribor Castle or Astoria garden and at the Rotovški Square, however in 2010 it has moved with the Maribor Puppet Theatre into a renovated Minorite building at Lent.

Performances had often toured also to Ptuj, Lenart, Celje, Medvode and Nova Gorica, recently they have toured to Ljubljana, Lendava and to the Coast; Slovene productions have also toured to Austria (Carinthia and Styria).