The 2005 International Organ Music Festival (on central Europe’s largest pipe-organ in St Moritz cathedral) wound up on the 19th with a performance of Bach and Handel by Reitze Smits from Holland. Fortunately for lovers of classical music, the annual Sacred Music Festival was ready to take its place on the cultural calendar in the last week of September. The 2005 12th annual festival began at St Michael’s church with a performance of Bach masses by the Prague philharmonic orchestra. The second performance was a few days later on the eve of the public holiday to commemorate Sv Vaclav/St Wenceslas day. Appropriately Sv Vaclav/St Wenceslas’ cathedral was the venue for Musica figuralis to perform works by Pergolesi and Mozart, among others. The festival continues on well into October and visits in turn the grandest of Olomouc’s historic religious buildings.

Gaudeamus igitur orientation-week student festival was also held on the eve of the St Wenceslas day public holiday. The wide field between the law faculty buildings (formerly the communist party headquarters) and the student dormitories on Trida/Avenue 17 Listopadu saw thousands of students and the general public gather for an evening of free concerts and fun. The 2005 headline band were the cult neo-punk Horkýže Slíže (Bitter Tears) from Slovakia. Their energetic performance had most of the attendees enthralled, but there was also plenty going on at the other end of the field for anyone who needed a break from the crowd. The beer and food tents were good value and well-patronised and huge inflatable competitions allowed people to test their tug-of-war and bull-riding skills, and knock each other from pedestals with long padded poles. All this was filmed and immediately projected onto large screens so that the action could be seen by the whole crowd. The Gaudeamus Igitur festival originated in Plzen in 1998 and now takes place in the nine largest universities around the country.