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Status: 05.07.2021 10:35 a.m.
Summer, sun, festivals? Only in the USA and in a few European countries are major open-air concerts taking place again. In Germany, the organizers are betting on autumn.
From Notker Blechner,
tagesschau.de
Event creator Bernd Breiter likes to ironically describe himself as “megalomaniac”. The bustling 50-year-old from Frankfurt has organized electronic parties in extinct volcanic craters, churches, ICE trains, airplanes and on cruise ships. With the “Big City Beats World Club Dome” he created the “biggest club in the world”. Since 2013, his event has attracted up to 200,000 electronic fans who dance to the beats of international DJs such as David Guetta, Sven Väth or Robin Schulz over three days in Frankfurt’s Waldstadion (now Deutsche Bank Park). Corona only thwarted his plans last year.
First big festival in September in Frankfurt
But now Breiter wants to start again. This year’s “World Club Dome” is to take place again in Frankfurt at the beginning of September – with thousands of visitors. “We plan it, we want it and we will do it too,” assures Breiter in the unmistakably Hessian dialect. The time for festivals is now ripe again.
A comprehensive hygiene and infection protection concept should make unadulterated party fun possible. “We are relying on the 3-G method with the world’s first variant test from Seegene,” explain the event organizers. The registered visitors should already do a test at home so that they do not even arrive if they are positive. There is then another PCR test on site. “It is not the size of the event that matters, but the testing technique,” emphasize the organizers of “Big City Beats”.
3-G rule
As part of the protection against infection in the corona pandemic, the 3-G rule serves to define groups of people who are assumed to have a low epidemiological risk. The three “G” stand for:
– Gvaccinated persons
– Genesene people
– Gtested people (i.e. people with a current, negative SARS-CoV-2 test)
Proof of belonging to one of these three groups of people may include access authorizations to facilities or entry permits to certain countries. The competent authorities in each case define whether and in which cases the 3G rule is applied and how long the evidence of membership of the respective group of people is valid – for example, how old a negative test result may be or how long the infection survived May be here in order to benefit from the 3-G rule after a recovery.
Wacken Festival only in a scaled-down version
The techno event is likely to be the first major German festival this year – after a forced break for months. The Wacken Festival will take place a short time later in a significantly slimmed-down version in mid-September – under the title “Bullhead City”. According to media reports, the event will allow a maximum of 20,000 to 30,000 visitors. Around 75,000 fans made the pilgrimage to the heavy metal festival before Corona. In addition, three smaller open-air festivals are currently planned in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
The “Pangea” with up to 15,000 spectators should provide information on whether concerts are functioning as they used to. In the pilot project there should only be a mask requirement at the entrance and in closed rooms. Visitors with full vaccination protection or a negative PCR test, which is repeated after three days, are admitted.
98 percent less sales in 2021
Despite these planned festivals, 2021 will be a disaster year for the industry. According to the Federal Association of the Concert and Event Industry, around 100,000 shows will have to be canceled this year. Large festivals such as “Rock am Ring”, “Hurricane”, “Summer Breeze” and concert tours have been canceled. The association predicts that sales in the industry will drop by 98 percent. In 2020, the minus was a good 80 percent. “A total of almost eleven billion euros in revenue would then be lost,” said association president Jens Michow in “Welt am Sonntag” at the end of June.
Before Corona, big festivals like “Rock am Ring” attracted a lot of visitors – this year they were canceled.
Image: dpa
The big concert and festival organizers are well insured against the cancellation of their events. Smaller providers, on the other hand, often cannot afford insurance. The 2.5 billion euro special fund Neustart Kultur is now supposed to help them. It compensates for failures and shortfalls in income from events. For smaller events, the state increases the revenue from ticket sales until the costs are covered.
The industry welcomes the fund, but would like to have an open perspective. So far, the federal government has not yet been able to agree on a uniform line and a date for the restart of the concert organizers. After all, the responsible parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, Thomas Bareiß, expressed optimism that concerts and events with thousands of visitors would be possible again in autumn. “As the vaccination rate increases, I am confident that we will soon return to normal.”
Austria and Switzerland allow large events
Other countries are already going further. Since the beginning of July, Austria has allowed full stadiums and concert halls without a mask requirement – taking into account the 3-G rule. The Frequency Festival in St. Pölten is held in August with a good 55,000 visitors.
Large events have also been possible without restrictions in neighboring Switzerland since the end of June. The Montreux Jazz Festival has just started, attracting thousands of visitors with numerous jazz and pop concerts. For the first time, however, the paid concerts will take place on a kind of lake stage and not in closed rooms – with limited contingents.
The event managers look jealously at the USA. There the musicians are sometimes playing again in full stadiums and halls. Almost like in the old days, tens of thousands of spectators flocked to the Vax Live concert with stars like Jennifer Lopez, the Foo Fighters or Eddie Vedder at the beginning of May.
Organizers are betting on next year
Most German concert organizers have already ticked off 2021 and are betting on the next year. “We need a long lead time and cannot wait months for politicians to give the green light,” explains Managing Director Gunther Lortz from the Herzberg Festival tagesschau.de. Many organizers only got through the lockdowns with short-time work and government aid. After all, there is now a cautious atmosphere of optimism. “I hope that in the fourth quarter we will see indoor concerts with full capacity without any distance or mask,” said CTS Eventim boss Klaus-Peter Schulenberg at the beginning of July. Maybe this will be possible in November.
If the concert business picks up again, many organizers will have a new problem: the lack of staff. Self-employed people such as caterers or sound and stage technicians have now been looking for permanent positions in other industries, said a manager tagesschau.de.