The 2026 edition of the VW Vintage Meeting was the last.

After four editions since 2014, the organising committee has decided to bring this international event to a definitive close. For twelve years, the VW Vintage Meeting brought together in Morat/Murten enthusiasts of classic Volkswagens from across Switzerland and many other European countries.

This decision was not made on impulse. Nor is it the result of a lack of success or of our passion fading.

Quite the opposite.

The 2026 edition once again showed just how much the VW Vintage Meeting was appreciated: exceptional vehicles, participants from all over Europe, an extraordinary atmosphere, thousands of visitors and an international community that now follows our event far beyond Switzerland’s borders.

It is precisely because the Meeting remains such a wonderful adventure that we have chosen to bring it to an end with dignity, rather than see it gradually lose what made it so special.

Since its creation, the VW Vintage Meeting has been based on a simple principle: a human-scale event, organised by enthusiasts and made possible largely through the commitment of volunteers.

For several editions, that balance worked.

But the conditions under which such an event must now be organised have changed considerably.

Over the years, administrative requirements, responsibilities, documentation, inspections and demands relating to parking areas, access and the use of public spaces have steadily increased.

We fully understand that an event welcoming the public must comply with rules and meet appropriate safety requirements. We have never questioned that principle.

What has become problematic for our committee is the accumulation of these requirements, the way they have evolved and, at times, the fact that new conditions have arisen very late in the organisational process.

The year 2026 was the clearest illustration of this.

In previous editions, the Pantschau area had been made available without being invoiced by the Municipality. Just a few weeks before the 2026 edition, the conditions changed significantly, with the announcement that several thousand Swiss francs would be charged for the use of this area.

After several exchanges, discussions and negotiations, a compromise was eventually reached.
We accepted this solution in order to allow the 2026 edition to go ahead and to honour the commitments we had already made to our participants, volunteers, partners and sponsors.

But the financial pressure did not end there.

Even before the event, we felt that we were being placed under a form of financial pressure: either accept new conditions and additional costs only a few weeks before the Meeting, or risk jeopardising an event that had been months in the making.

And while we believed that the matter had been settled through the compromise reached before the Meeting, the Municipality of Morat/Murten is now requesting several thousand Swiss francs in additional payments after the event, in the form of costs, compensation and other charges linked to the event.

For our committee, this is particularly difficult to understand and accept. After having to negotiate new financial conditions at very short notice before the Meeting, we are now faced, once the event is over, with further financial claims.

This succession of demands, both before and after the event, illustrates the climate of uncertainty in which our committee had to work and has contributed directly to our decision not to organise another edition.

But the issue goes beyond the financial aspect alone.

During the final weeks before the Meeting, our committee had to devote a considerable amount of time and energy to administrative matters, external parking areas, conditions governing the use of different sites, inspections, requests for clarification and obtaining confirmations that were essential to the organisation of the event.

That energy was no longer being devoted to what should be at the heart of the work of a volunteer team: welcoming participants, preparing the event and creating something that Morat/Murten could be proud of.

We would like to be very clear on this point: the decision to bring the VW Vintage Meeting to an end is not based on a single letter, a single invoice or a disagreement with one particular individual.

It is the result of the accumulation of all these elements and of our conclusion that the balance required to continue running a volunteer-organised event no longer exists.

For an event like ours to continue, obtaining permits is not enough. It also requires trust, stability, proportionality and a shared willingness, within reasonable limits, to facilitate its organisation.

Today, we no longer believe that these conditions exist sufficiently for us to consider a fifth edition with confidence. The way our working relationship with the Municipality of Morat/Murten has developed no longer allows us to reasonably envisage continuing the Meeting within the framework required for a volunteer-run organisation.

We could have continued.
We could have accepted more procedures, more constraints, more responsibilities and probably more costs.

But that would have meant gradually transforming an adventure driven by passion into an administrative structure that our volunteer organisation neither wishes nor is intended to become.

We have therefore made a choice.

To stop before one edition too many.
This decision is naturally tinged with sadness, because Morat/Murten was an integral part of the identity of the VW Vintage Meeting.

The exceptional setting of the Pantschau, Lake Murten, the old town and the unique atmosphere of Morat/Murten all played an essential role in the success and international reputation of our event.

And we sincerely believe that the VW Vintage Meeting also brought something to Morat/Murten.

Since 2014, hundreds of vehicle owners have travelled specifically to our region. They stayed in local hotels, visited restaurants and shops and introduced Morat/Murten to their families, friends and an entire international community of enthusiasts.

Thousands of photographs and videos of Morat/Murten and Lake Murten have circulated throughout Europe and far beyond.

Our social media community now brings together more than 100,000 enthusiasts.

With the means available to us as volunteers, we are proud to have contributed over all these years to the international visibility of Morat/Murten.

We would also like to thank everyone at Morat Tourism who supported and accompanied us throughout the different editions. Our decision in no way calls into question their personal commitment.

After the 2026 edition, however, our collective conclusion is clear: we no longer have the conditions required to organise another edition of the VW Vintage Meeting in Morat/Murten in the spirit that has always defined it.

We therefore prefer to close this chapter with the satisfaction of having created something rare.

• • Four editions.
  • Hundreds of historic Volkswagens.
  • Enthusiasts from all over Europe.
  • Thousands of visitors.
  • The cars will keep driving.
  • The enthusiasts will keep meeting.

Encounters, friendships and memories that will remain closely associated with Morat/Murten for many years to come. And the story of the VW Vintage Meeting will continue to live on in the memories of everyone who, at some point, took to the road to join us by Lake Murten.

We would, of course, have preferred for this story to continue being written in Morat/Murten.

But after twelve years of adventure, we have chosen to close the book with pride and with the feeling that we took our volunteer organisation as far as it could reasonably go.

Thank you to everyone who made this adventure possible: our volunteers, partners and sponsors, the clubs, the hundreds of vehicle owners and the thousands of visitors who, since 2014, brought the VW Vintage Meeting to life and helped us make Morat/Murten known far beyond Switzerland’s borders.

Thanks to you, this adventure will leave a lasting mark on the history of gatherings dedicated to original Volkswagens.

And somewhere on the roads of Europe, two former participants may one day recognise each other behind the wheel of their classic Volkswagens and think back, with a smile, to those weekends spent together by Lake Murten.

To everyone who helped write this story with us… THANK YOU.

The Organising Committee
International VW Vintage Meeting Morat/Murten