Christmas markets and energy crisis: Advent, Advent – no lights burning?

From this weekend there will be mulled wine and an Advent atmosphere at the first Christmas markets – but in many places with fewer twinkling lights and other restrictions to keep the electricity bill low.

Mulled wine stands, bratwurst stalls, almond huts, Christmas atmosphere under fairy lights: The first Christmas markets are already opening this weekend, well before the start of Advent – also, according to the operators, to compensate for the two-year Corona failure a bit.

Nevertheless, nothing will be the same as it used to be. Because bright lights, fairground rides and ice rinks are not easily compatible with the claim to save as much energy as possible this winter.

Few Christmas markets canceled

The German Environmental Aid had called for the Christmas lights to be completely eliminated or limited to a central Christmas tree in each city. A proposal that met with mixed reactions. Nevertheless, some cities and communities have already completely canceled Christmas markets in advance.

In Daun in the Vulkaneifel, for example, the “Advent lights” on the castle hill are cancelled. Calling on the population to save energy on the one hand and approving an event lasting several days with high energy requirements on the other do not go together, explained the organizer Rüdiger Herres. At least on the Advent weekends, the city will switch on the Christmas lights.

Saving energy: Technology makes it possible

Other cities such as Bamberg, Regensburg or the Bavarian state capital Munich want to let the markets take place, but save electricity by using LED light chains and shorter lighting times.

The Christmas market in Ludwigshafen starts on November 9th: “We have been saving electricity for years where we can,” emphasizes operator Thomas Herzberger. He has switched the lighting on his three bumper cars to LEDs and is checking which of them he really needs to switch on.

Fewer lamps, less runtime

But there is not only lighting on the markets, the city centers are also often festively decorated. This year, however, the lights will be dimmed significantly: Bremen, for example, has so-called winter and Christmas lights. While the winter lights were on from the end of October to the end of February last year, they now start on November 20th. It will be on display by January 31 at the latest – after just six hours of burning a day. This is how a balance between Christmas ambience and energy saving is found in these difficult times, explained the chairman of the City Initiative Bremen, Jens Risted.

The reduction in the lighting time in Düsseldorf is particularly pronounced: Instead of 15 hours, the lamps and lights are only switched on for five hours a day. In general, poinsettias, snowflake imitations and artificial icicles will probably hang less everywhere this year and shine for a shorter time than before the crisis.

Roller skates instead of ice skates

In addition to the festive lighting, winter ice rinks are one of the biggest attractions at the Christmas market in many cities. But they are huge energy guzzlers.

Cities like Bielefeld or Worms therefore completely do without artificial ice rinks. In Wiesbaden, visitors can glide on runners over plastic instead of artificial ice. In Bad Neuenahr, where a Christmas market opened its doors for the first time since the flood disaster a year and a half ago, the operators rely on roller skates instead of ice skates.

“We don’t leave people in the dark”

Neuwied am Rhein has also adapted the concept for this year’s Christmas market. The head of city marketing, Petra Neuendorf, relies on natural light for fewer chains of lights, i.e. candle lighting: “We don’t leave people in the dark.”

However, the organizers have moved away from the original plan of setting up candles in jars and have instead purchased closed lanterns, also for safety reasons.

Herbert Meyer runs a children’s carousel, a crêpe snack bar and serves mulled wine. He also wants to save on the lighting and do without a few light installations. Instead, he distributes 40 lanterns on his bar tables and huts. But he doesn’t see any great savings potential: “Such a skylight on a mulled wine stand, 20 by 10 meters, costs around 24 euros in electricity – in four weeks.” Nevertheless, he is behind the idea of ​​”candles instead of chains”: