Almost sold out, still broke
The “Fusion” festival is missing several million euros – now the event is threatened with insolvency
The Fusion Festival has been taking place on a former Russian military airfield in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since 1997
© Christian Charisius/ / Picture Alliance
Despite increased ticket prices and funding, the operators of the Fusion Festival are threatened with insolvency. There are enough reasons for this.
Colourful, loud and garish – people not only know and love Fusion, one of the largest festivals in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in Germany. After a two-year break due to the pandemic, tens of thousands of guests celebrated at the Fusion in Lärz from June 29 to July 3, 2022. What sounds like a complete success has in fact increased the financial difficulties of the operators.
“The downside of the story is that we currently have a very large financial deficit and now have to act quickly so that the entire Kulturkosmos project does not slip into an existential crisis,” write the operators of “Kulturkosmos” in their newsletter from April 6th. August 2022. A shortfall of 1.5 to 2 million euros is expected. The exact amount is not yet known, but “that’s significantly more than expected,” according to Kulturkosmos.
Association plans sale of land and house for refugees
“Enormous price increases” for materials, services, technology and infrastructure are given as reasons for the deficit. “What we also underestimated was the additional effort and the associated costs for setting up the festival and the infrastructure after two festival-free years.”
According to the newsletter, to make up for the deficit, the organizers plan, among other things, to sell real estate, including twelve building plots in the area. A three-storey house directly on the Mecklenburg Lake District, which “Kulturkosmos” bought and renovated in 2015 to create living space for refugees, is also to be sold. In addition, donations were requested.
Expensive tickets and a trip to the bank do not solve financial problems
According to the festival organizers, a loan from the bank would not solve the financial problems. “But banks basically don’t want to lend large sums over short terms, so we were initially put off to an overdraft facility at high interest rates and not in the amount that we needed,” they explain in the newsletter.
According to the organizers, 80,000 participants, including contributors, were allowed to be on the festival site at this year’s Fusion. The reason for the limited number is the dispute over the Fusion Festival, in which a large-scale operation and the presence of the police on the festival site were up for debate for the first time.
With 15,000 participants, a maximum of 65,000 paying visitors were possible, according to the organizers. 64,000 tickets were sold. In previous years, 70,000 visitors were possible. This income was missing. The tickets for the Fusion 2022 were sold for 220 euros, 70 euros more expensive than those of the previous festival.
Transparent cost breakdown is to come
An earlier newsletter revealed that Kulturkosmos was faced with spending millions during the festival-free years 2020 and 2021. The salaries of the permanent club employees alone would have amounted to 750,000 euros.
The construction of the new “Turmbühne” would have cost 500,000 euros, the construction costs of which the organizers said had “greatly underestimated”. In addition, there were sharply increased costs for materials, services, technology and infrastructure.
“As soon as we can get an overview of all the figures, we want to put our expenses together on our website in order to make the situation transparent and to make it clear what has eaten up how much money,” said the organizers.
Sources: Newsletter Fusion, dpa, NDR