Chemnitz2025 at the 10th KulturInvest congress in Berlin. In our forum on the subject of “Capital of Culture”, which was opened by Mayor Barbara Ludwig, Dr. Ulrich Fuchs, the current chairman of the EU jury for the selection of the Capitals of Culture, once again focused on the European dimension of an application. Rui Costa from Porto and Werner Schrempf from Graz, two former Capitals of Culture, described the change in city life thanks to festivals, while Andrea Hofmann from raumlabor_berlin presented successful examples of the artistic reconquest of urban space. Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe shared with us their experiences from cultural development planning, with Dr. Susanne Asche, the head of the cultural office from Karlsruhe, emphasising once again that although her city had lost out to Essen in the bid for 2010, the process was an absolute winner. From Stuttgart came an example of a successful cultural region and from Bad Ischl the tourist perspective on successful cultural development. Finally, Eva Gräfer and Robert Verch presented the Chemnitz support programme for the cultural and creative industries KRACH. In the final round of the day, our project manager Ferenc Csák, the Leipzig Department of Culture Dr. Skadi Jennike and the President of the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheytt exchanged views on the chances of Capital of Culture applications for the development of a city: Why, for example, an application for Chemnitz is a big win and why Leipzig doesn’t need an application (but Chemnitz absolutely begrudges the title).