Townfolk's Marksmanship Festival
Every year for five days beginning with the last weekend in August, the City of Neuss is taken over by its marksmen.
This is when the city celebrates its great Townsfolk’s Marksmanship Fair, to which it regularly awaits more than a million visitors to the biggest marksmen's fair held on the Lower Rhine.
Some 150,000 residents, an enormous number of visitors from near and far, and 6,000 marksmen, all look forward to high jinks in the city centre, on the shooting grounds, and on the fairground square.
Tickets for the Stands / Information
Office of the Neusser Bürger-Schützen-Verein e.V.
Oberstrasse 60
41460 Neuss
Phone: +492131-217070
(Open from mid-July until the Fair)
Tourist Information Neuss
Rathausarkaden
Büchel 6
41460 Neuss
Phone: +492131-4037795
Fax: +492131-4037797
Internet: www.neuss-marketing.de
E-Mail: tourist-info@neuss-marketing.de
Opening hours:
Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., and 2:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Timetable of activities:
Friday:
- 5 p.m.
- Opening of the fairground
Saturday:
- 12 noon
- Opening of the Schützenfest (Marksmanship Festival)
- 5 p.m.
- Remembrance of the Dead on the Market Square
- 5.10 p.m.
- Parade of the Corps of Drums
- 8.45 p.m.
- Torchlight procession through Neuss city centre with more than 70 giant torches
Sunday:
- 8.10 a.m.
- Festive High Mass in St. Quirinus's Cathedral
- 10.10 a.m.
- Royal Parade A brilliantly colourful march-past by the 4,000 and more men of the Marksmen's Regiment with over 1,000 musicians of the music corps and corps of drums, and the procession of the "Hönesse" (horns filled with flowers).
- 4.15 p.m.
- Festive parade through the city centre
- 7 p.m.
- Flag throwing and open-air concert on the Market Square
- 9 p.m.
- Grenadiers’ Ball
Monday:
- 10.30 a.m.
- Morning music in the marquee (Entrance free)
- 3.15 p.m.
- Festive parade through Neuss city centre
- 7.30 p.m.
- Withdrawal of the Regiment and Review by the Colonel
- 9 p.m.
- Hunters' Ball
Tuesday:
- 3 p.m.
- Festive parade through Neuss city centre
- 6.15 p.m.
- Royal Shoot-the-Bird contest on the Fairground
- 7.45 p.m.
- Ceremonial Tattoo in the marquee
- 8.30 p.m.
- Festive parade with the new Schützenkönig (Champion Marksman)
- 10.30 p.m.
- Grand concluding firework display on the Fairground
After the processions there will be open-air concerts, prize shoot-the-bird contests, ring spearing, dancing, and children’s entertainments.