She is back. Official permission to meet and celebrate in hundreds, even thousands. Major events have been allowed again since the end of March. Less than two months in advance, and big stages are being screwed together and played on again. After two years of standstill, organizers of open-air festivals, concerts and folk festivals are putting together a tightly organized program for the summer. There is a lot going on, a number of artists are catching up on their concerts. The spokesman for a major festival says: “Anyone who can hold a guitar is touring.”
Checking tickets at the entrance, checking backpacks and keeping the tumbling masses in check from the Graben during the shows – this requires security personnel. Lots of security staff. But similar to construction or gastronomy, thousands of workers are missing. If you phone the security services, from Hamburg to Frankfurt to Munich, it is said that they are receiving far more inquiries for the summer than they can accept. During the Pentecost holidays there was chaos and canceled flights at the local airports. The reason was the lack of staff at the security check.
Two weeks ago, the Pulse Festival in Geltendorf near Munich, with 11,000 registered visitors, had to be canceled after just one day. A significant number of security guards from a sub-service provider did not appear on duty as contractually agreed. Because no replacement could be found at such short notice, the festival guests who had already arrived had to leave the site before the big headliner shows. But what does the unsuccessful start to the festival season mean for the rest of the summer? Is the Pulse Festival an isolated case or are further cancellations imminent because the stewards are missing?
Security guards are the “Achilles heel” at events
The defect is not new. As early as 2021, the Federal Association of the Security Industry (BDSW) complained about 40,000 vacancies. At this time, employees of private security services checked the corona requirements in rows in test centers, companies and authorities. As soon as these orders expired in spring 2022, the concentrated onslaught from the events industry returned. No festival without a folder, not even a street festival. “A lack of security is the Achilles’ heel of the German events industry,” says BDSW spokeswoman Silke Zöller. Your association represents around 270,000 employees and more than a thousand security companies. She does not rule out further failures this summer.
It is impossible to have all the staff together before ticket sales start, says Thomas Jensen with regard to the canceled festival in Bavaria. The 55-year-old with the gray hair on his shoulders is one of the most experienced organizers in Germany. For 32 years he has been organizing the Wacken Open Air in Schleswig-Holstein together with Holger Hübner. At the beginning of August, Jensen is expecting 75,000 guests again after a two-year break. “You have to imagine that, we’re building a festival site the size of a small town,” says Jensen. The tickets are already sold out.
Thomas Jensen and his co-founder Holger Hübner have been organizing the Wacken metal festival for 32 years.
(Photo: ICS Festival Service GmbH)
Jensen and Hübner need more than 500 security forces at the entrance, in front of the stage and on the premises. “At the moment we know that we have all the people together,” he says of the “Metal Guards,” as the security forces at Wacken are called. He was “very sorry” about the cancellation of the pulse open air. In the video call you can now see Jensen shrugging his shoulders. In advance, he says, they would have had enough security people with the pulse. The abrupt cancellation, shortly before the concerts really started, also sensitized him. “Economically, there is nothing more uncertain than an open air, if only because of the weather,” says the Wacken boss. This year, for organizers whose job it is to think flexibly, there is now another unknown.
A strongly compressed year of events
But how did such a big hole in the staff arise in the private security sector? Aman Momand, 44, heads the security service Golden Eye in Frankfurt. His phone is ringing like an alarm clock that has been repeatedly set to snooze. “There are definitely more events than before the pandemic. The quantity is enormous,” says Momand. He has a number of employees in the “lower three-digit range”. The German Event Association explains the increased event activity as follows: Due to the short-term fall of the restrictions, an entire event year would be “squeezed into half a year”, says the association’s board member Borhen Azzouz.
In addition to the squashed demand for security forces, the emigration in two years due to Corona will increase the shortage of personnel. Especially in the event sector, for which security companies often hired additional staff on a 450-euro basis, many have probably migrated to other jobs in logistics, industry or retail. “They don’t just come back now, also because of the uncertainty as to whether it will stay like this or whether there will be another wave in the fall,” says the BDSW. The most popular job sites like Stepstone and Indeed are full of ads from security companies.
Not everyone can become security
The boss of the Munich security company Diesnox, Apostolos Partalas, only had to turn down a larger request shortly before the interview: 20 additional security guards for the Munich Oktoberfest. His 30 employees are already fully booked. “I could hire 20 more people straight away,” says the Diesnox boss. But it is not that simple. Of all semi-skilled professions, security forces have to meet the highest requirements. A so-called “reliability check” by the local authorities and proof of an impeccable certificate of good conduct. “And unlike cleaning staff or in the kitchen, it’s important for us that they can talk to the customer,” says Apostolos Partalas.
Unlike professions that also do not require dual training, such as harvest workers or jobs in logistics, the barriers to entry put the security industry at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to recruitment. “You should be able to pay people more, but the competition doesn’t allow that,” says security company boss Partalas. In addition to the low wages of around 11.50 euros per hour, there are irregular working hours in the events sector, which are mainly concentrated on evenings and weekends. Nothing that workers fight about. And certainly not now, when a labor market has emerged in numerous sectors in recent years, meaning workers can increasingly choose where they work and no longer have to compete for a job with multiple applicants.
The big ones take care of the little ones
Wacken boss Thomas Jensen believes that the tense demand will also lead to higher prices for security personnel. “But that mainly affects the small ones, who don’t make as much sales,” says Jensen. They might soon no longer be able to bid on price increases by the security forces. Despite the two-year absence, the Wacken Festival is in good financial shape. But that doesn’t make the organizers any easier. After all, he knows what it’s like to start small. In the first year, 1990, 800 visitors celebrated the performances of metal bands in the small Nordic town of Wacken.