The Munich student city, called Stusta for short, is currently delivering a huge, colorful sign of life with its four-day, purely voluntary “Stustaculum” festival – and with live music, cabaret, tarte flambée, beer and cocktails, it is successfully resisting the sadness before the dormitory Porters and Bavarian politics have not preserved them. Around 1,300 apartments in the Stusta have been empty for years because the urgently needed renovation was delayed for years.
Some of the blocks look badly torn off. It is all the more impressive that a team of around 500 young people – some of whom have left Stusta and work long ago, but some of whom are just beginning their studies – manage to hold a lively, happy open-air party there. With artists who, like all the helpers, are there without a fee but with a lot of enthusiasm.
The organizing association “Culture Life in the Stusta”, which the cultural department and student union promote for the Stustaculum, counted 3,700 visitors on Wednesday, and many flocked to the site on Thursday, even during a thunderstorm. Board member Michael Stevens and spokesman Fabian Eckl are happy that the festival is working as usual after Corona and despite the empty blocks of flats, including tolerant neighbors. “They see it as their festival,” praises Eckl.
And board member Stevens adds that the Stustaculum is the largest of Munich’s university festivals, larger than the TU festival “Tunix” and the “Garnix” on the Garching campus, with which there is not only friendship, but even a joint concert organization software and helping each other out on helper shifts. It’s always about togetherness.
And also about courage. Because this time “StustaPay”, the cashless “first open source festival payment system” developed by Jonas Jelten and a ten-person team of “Software-Hippies” passed the acid test. Jelten is currently doing his doctorate in computer science – and is now receiving company inquiries for his software. It is freely accessible to everyone.
The Stustaculum runs until Saturday, has moderate admission prices – and possibly upcoming stars in the program. The band “July” (“The Perfect Wave”) performed here long before anyone knew them. And yes, Eckl also admits that: They had once rejected the application of the “Sportfreunde Stiller”. Will be regretted today, but was…brave.