A tent village packed with people and culture, with ten stages and 100 concerts, with 70 market stalls full of handicrafts and bric-a-brac, snack stands with falafel, langos and vegan gyros, large carved sculptures, sustainability courses and a thick program booklet – no, we’re not there the Tollwood Festival. The Uferlos in Freising can certainly keep up with the big Munich summer party. There are even points where the friendly “free and outside” get-together in Luitpoldpark performs better.
It’s hard to believe, but 98 percent of all events at the 13th Uferlos Festival can be attended free of charge. Tollwood also has a high free share (90 percent), although the star guest appearances there do cost Take That for example even up to 207 euros. In Freising you only have to buy tickets for two concerts: ten euros for the big band concert of the Freising schools in the Luitpoldhalle (May 8th), and 32 euros for the final concert with Dreiviertelblut – the anti-folklore ensemble of the Bananafishbones-Singer Sebastian Horn and film music professor Gerd Baumann will pay back the entrance fee twice or three times in a good mood.
Now that doesn’t mean that the approximately 98 free events are filled with hobby cover bands. Friends of upscale German-speaking indie pop could use the money they saved to get a hotel room for a ten-day short vacation. Morbidity maestro Voodoo Jürgens (May 4th) and the Weltschrei-Wellenreiter come from Vienna Joy (5.). As Hamburger School co-founders The stars (7.) as well as Jochen Distelmeyer, songwriter legend from Blumfeld (11.), whose torch is carried on by Berliner Max Prosa (12.).
Bringing Bavarian homeland sound Monobo Son (3.), Kofelgschroa-Descendant Maxi Pongratz (9th), the Weiherer (10th) and dialect soul sensation Claudia Koreck (9th) to the Luitpoldanlage. There is also a constant shuttle service from Munich to Freising from well-known names beyond the scene, such as Angela Aux (May 3rd), Austrofred (4th), Paul Kowol and Matija (8th), Rocket review and Friends of Gas (10.) and The sauna (11th).
If you prefer to be active yourself, you can take part in open choir singing (11th), guitar and theater workshops and dance taster courses from boogie to kizomba to line dancing. Children are also kept busy around the clock by clowns, storytellers or capoeira teachers. In the sustainability tent, visitors learn everything about solar power on their own roof, wild bee protection or the food of the future in lectures – the motto of the festival is, after all, “Living sustainably, fairly and happily”.
You can hear a sisterly closeness to Munich’s Tollwood, but bands, students and institutions from Freising give the Uferlos its very own flair. The “Uferlos Run” over 2.2, 6.0 or 11.0 kilometers on Ascension Day (9th) is also unique. And to mark the diocese’s anniversary “1300 Years of Korbinian”, together with the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, the local patron is being celebrated with a family celebration on Ascension Day: After an ecumenical devotion with a blessing for children by Cardinal Reinhard Marx and regional bishop Thomas Prieto Peral (2 p.m.), there will be a children’s concert with the family band Shooting star (3 p.m).
Anyone who has enjoyed Freising can look forward to July: there is a reference to this in the Uferlos program booklet “Great life and stereo”: The great pop open air returns to the Vöttinger Weiher after a forced break of years in time for its 25th anniversary with bands like ok.thanks.bye, Granada, Mola, Telquist, Salo and Keno (July 27 & 27).
Uferlos Festival, Friday, May 3rd to Sunday, May 12th, Freising, Luitpoldanlage, program below uferlos-festival.de