Prominent summer music festival - Salzburg Festival – will be held in a modified format with fewer performances this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While making the announcement on Monday, the organizer said that the festival in Austria will take place from August 1 to 30 this year. It was originally scheduled for 44 days - from July 18 to August 30.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the world-famous festival of music and drama. The original plan was to stage over 200 performances at 16 different locations. But now only about 90 performances will be held this year – in at most six different places. Performances that can't be played this year will be postponed to 2021.

The announcement came on the heels of a national regulation in Austria that cultural events with at most 1250 participants can be held in the country starting August 1. And the distance between each seat must be at least one meter.

Due to the rearrangements, the tickets sold before will be cancelled. The festival sold 180,000 tickets worth 24.5 million euros, hitting a record high. The festival will refund the buyers and resell tickets according to the new schedule.

A number of remarkable artistic festivals have been cancelled this year due to the coronavirus, including the Edinburgh Art Festival, the Avignon Festival and Lucerne Festival. Many view the coming of Salzburg Festival as a sign for the art and music circles' slow reboot.

"It pains me to be forced to cancel so many artists' appearances for this year," said the festival's artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser in a statement on Monday. "We had developed special program constellations with many of them. Still, I am glad to have the opportunity to send a vibrant and powerful signal for the arts with this new Festival program."