“All our visions seem to be becoming reality,” says Fruszina Szep after the first five days of set-up, “amazing! Teamwork makes the dream work.” Only those who haven’t taken a closer look at their “baby”, the “Superbloom”, could now say: Why, this is a festival like many. It’s not. “Superbloom” is not only the first big open-air event in the Olympic Park since the last “Rockavaria” in 2016, it’s an “experiment”, as Szep calls it. The fact that she is called “festival director” also shows that a larger company is running here, a kind of circus with a dozen arenas. On Saturday and Sunday, September 3rd and 4th, from 11 a.m. to midnight, there will not only be around 60 concerts by international, national and regional musicians, but also artists, dancers, visual artists, magicians, podcasters, kid favorites, comedians, scientists and activists. In short: “Superbloom”, behind which the Berlin agency Goodlife is behind, with its 120 very different program items, seems like the month-long “Tollwood” spectacle, but on two days. And that’s no wonder, Tollwood already inspired Fruzsina Szep, the only female director of a major festival in Europe, when she was growing up in Munich. Their connection to the city and Bavaria is also reflected in a number of regionally rooted blossoms for the “Superbloom”.
The concerts
While the assistants, from the stage technicians to the cleaning staff, who were missing everywhere after the pandemic, could only be drummed together at the last minute, the heart of the “Superbloom” has been fixed for six months (after some turbulence in the pandemic): the music program exciting mix across all pop genres. The train numbers on the stadium’s “Olympic Stage,” the largest of four concert stages, are two of the highest-paid and busiest dance-pop producers in the world: Calvin Harris (“Summer”) on Saturday night, 10 p.m., and David Guetta (” Titanium”) on Sunday, 10 p.m. International hip-hop stars such as Megan Thee Stallion and Macklemore play in front of them, as do rap climbers Schmyt from Viersen and 01099 from Dresden. And German pop greats like Lea (“Zu Dir”), Annenmaykanreit (“Barefoot at the Piano”) and power club (“One song is enough”) meet the Bavarian tone setter here La Brass Banda and Roy Bianco & Abbrunzati Boys.
David Guetta belongs on the stage on Sunday from 10 p.m.
(Photo: Superbloom)
The Superstage (on the Tollwood site) is also spectacularly cast, for example with Rita Ora (“Let You Love Me”), electro hit machine Alan Walker, Grime Croesus Skepta and the Belgian fine spirit and pop mastermind Stromae (“Alors On Dance”).
Willow, the daughter of Hollywood actor Will Smith, is giving her only concert in Germany this year on the Bloomstage in the Olympiahalle; this is where the indie rockers play Glass Animals as well as this year’s British ESC candidate Sam Ryder; and comedians Kurt Krömer and Kaya Yanar will show that good humor can also entertain a pop audience.
The fine spirit and pop pioneer Stromae plays on the Superstage.
(Photo: Michael Ferire)
As the name suggests, the Neoneo Stage wants to present the hottest artists of the younger generation. “Superbloom” has the young wave experts of the BR platform for this Pulse here on the Theatronbühne am Olympiasee exciting stories from Mia Morgan and Sofia Portanet about local heroes such as The sauna and Umm Block to the internet lab stars presenting BBQ podcast and football MML.
circus and dance
The name of the floating stage in the Olympiasee stands for everything that Superbloom wants to be: Spectacular. In particular, there is a colorful program of performing arts: Cirque nouveau by the companies Analog and Gravity & Other Myths, cloth acrobatics by Solair, young talent from the Berlin State School of Artists, African street dance by the company La Mer Noire from Senegal and more contemporary Dance by the Ukrainian-Hungarian company Recirquel as well as by the renowned Munich Ivanson International School of Contemporary Dance.
This is the map that Superbloom uses to help visitors find their way around.
(Photo: Superneo)
Science
The festival director is particularly proud of “SuperBrain”, the “Experience” area for research and science – “mainly because there has never been a format like this at a music festival”. The actors here are also very excited, some have already had their backstage area shown to them: “And here I could actually have a coffee with David Guetta?” Fruzsina Szep quotes a young researcher, who then at the festival – full of enthusiasm and flame – will enchant the audience with physics. Superbrains from many institutes come together in “SuperBrain”: Among other things, the Deutsches Museum is sending a team of robots for human-machine interaction; the emerging Biotopia Natural History Museum is setting up hands-on experiments, the Helmholtz Center is playing colour, light and DNA; the utopians of the “Science Fiction Festival” fantasize, the physicists of the “Methodically incorrect!” podcast rant; and the rest of “Why, why, why?” answers Joachim Hecker, the science entertainer from the “Broadcast with the Mouse”.
children’s program
Even with the two-day children’s program, a whole summer holiday month could easily be filled. The youngest festival guests are particularly important to the director, Fruzsina Szep, also because she became a mother herself during the planning phase. A festival in the Woodstock tradition should be “a meeting place for generations”, especially the youngest could “discover the associated feeling of freedom” at festivals and marvel at the wonders of the world. They can do that in the “Minibloom” quarter in the creative camp, in the movement area, in the kitchen fun, the soap bubble disco, at the hammock hangout, at workshops for building birdhouses and magic. There are also baby changing stations, baby carriage parking spaces and healthy, child-friendly snack bars. And on the “Daisy Stage” in the MiniBloom, the daisies among the festival guests can rock out with the dinosaur metal band heavysauruswith the beatboxers of the Razzzelgang land on the planet Aiuk Aiukuck and rhyme it all with butterfly shit with rapper Sukini.
art
Some of the works of art in the “Art Bloom” area on the meadow next to the Olympic Tower are created there – based on the impressions of the festival. Carolina C. Kreusch (Bavarian Culture Prize 2020), the Munich textile artist Stefan Wischnewski, the performer and sculptor Louisa Abdelkader and the draftsman and video artist Patrick Borchers will be there.
cosiness
“Setz’ di hera, samma mehra” – the “Superbloom” borrows a Bavarian cosiness motto for its “BearBrass&Beats” area. This is a kind of hip beer garden at the foot of the Olympic Tower, where Bavarian delicacies are served, also of a musical nature, such as by the duo Erwin & Edwin or the 13-musician troupe tractor keel. And in between the radio DJs from Bayern 3. Just a stroll further across the canal bridge there is a ‘fair of games’ with curiosities such as ‘in Budapest City Park in the 1920s’; and behind it the “Weinlaube am See” which is performed from the floating stage “Hideaway” with singer-songwriter music by Oimara, cherry stone spit or Kathy Santos is gently sonicated.
fashion and more
Guests will find everything that is fashionable, trendy and lifestyle in District4: fashion shows from the Munich Academy for Fashion and Design alternate here with queer ballroom dances from “The Iconic House of Saint Laurent”, live podcasts from Ivanka T , the hairstyle show of the Spaniards known from Tollwood Osadia and panel discussions on fair fashion and diversity in show business. Music bingo provides edification, rave aerobics and rebel yoga with Robert Ehrenbrand (also hardcore bass player from Boy Sets Fireby the way) and a roller skate disco.
social commitment
Superbloom should also have a political effect. That’s why the human rights activist Tupoka Ogette (“Exit Racism”) is supposed to speak to the visitors’ conscience on the main stage. And that’s what the “Your Planet” section is for. Here around the 22 meter high GEM tower, which generates wind and solar energy, 30 organizations from Amnesty to Juno (for refugee women) to Fridays For Future present their work and concerns in panel discussions, live – with the support of the State Agency for Civic Education -Podcasts, performances and workshops.