ZURICH - Scientifica opened on Saturday, a nine-day science festival the University of Zurich describes as the largest in Switzerland. It runs until 30 August at sites in and around the city. The point of that map is that the event is not one queue at one door. Talks, demonstrations and walks are spread so that a Saturday visitor and a midweek one are not seeing the same hour.
August is when Zurich's universities are half empty of term-time students and full of people looking for rooms, a squeeze covered in our lettings note. Scientifica uses the same weeks for the opposite invitation: come in, rather than find a lease. The university has been advertising the dates since July.
What a science festival is for in a technical city
Zurich already sells itself on research. A festival is the week when that claim has to be shown to people who do not have a badge. Organisers are not publishing a final visitor count on opening morning. They are publishing a calendar. Nine days is long enough to be a civic event rather than a department open evening.