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Yodelling festival opens by Zug lakeshore

group of yodelers
The competitions are taking place in 11 different venues, and there is also spontaneous yodelling in the yodelling village. © Keystone / Urs Flueeler

Switzerland’s 31st Federal Yodelling Festival opened on Friday in the central town of Zug, with up to 150,000 visitors expected by Sunday.

Around 10,000 yodellers, flag-wavers and alphorn players will be performing over the next three days. Clubs from abroad will also be taking part.

The festival opened at noon with a flag handover in the central square (Landsgemeindeplatz) on Lake Zug. It went ahead without a planned air show of the Patrouille Suisse, the aerobatic squadron of the Swiss Air Force, after two F-5 Tiger jets touched each other during a training flight on Thursday.

+ Find out how to get a bachelor’s degree in yodelling

The first competitions started during the opening ceremony. On Friday and Saturday, 622 yodelling performances, 392 alphorn performances and 160 flag presentations will be judged. Sunday, the last day, is expected to be the highlight with a ceremony performed as a festival play and a parade of artists through the town.

The competitions will take place in 11 different venues. There will also be spontaneous performances in the yodelling village, which has been set up along the lake.  

The last Federal Yodelling Festival took place in Brig in 2017. One planned in Basel in 2020 and 2021 had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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