The Whitsun festival is one of four festival blocks the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden fits into its season, beside the Easter, autumn and winter weeks. The house opened in April 1998 with 2,500 seats, the largest opera and concert hall in Germany, and it keeps no ensemble of its own: each festival is assembled from visiting orchestras, opera companies and soloists. Roughly a third of its budget comes from private patrons and sponsors rather than public subsidy.