Ox on the spit, cheerful musicians, Ferris wheel and carousel: the season of fairs and beer tent fun begins in the Free State this weekend with the first folk festivals. Hardly anyone in the big cities is likely to notice the crisis mood in the showmen’s industry – but for the small church fairs, according to the chairman of the South German Association of Traveling Showmen and Traders, things don’t look so rosy.
Lack of employees, high energy costs, supply chain problems, enormous bureaucracy: “The regulations make life very, very difficult for us,” said Lorenz Kalb in Nuremberg. People help each other, “but we need significant cost relief from politics.”
The spring folk festival begins in Würzburg on Saturday. Every year three weeks before Easter, it is the first major folk festival of the year in Bavaria, the Lower Franconian city announced in advance. The Gögginger Spring Festival was held in Augsburg on Friday evening. Free beer and a brass band are intended to attract as many visitors as possible. The folk festival was founded more than half a century ago in Göggingen, which was then still an independent town. The small town was later incorporated into neighboring Augsburg, which is why it is now a district festival in the Swabian metropolis.
The first folk festivals are also planned for spring in cities like Nuremberg, Ingolstadt and Regensburg – many people then dress up in dirndls or lederhosen, checked shirts and oat shoes. Lorenz Kalb is expecting another good season. There is no sign that people are spending less due to inflation. “We also have very good Christmas markets behind us.” They try to offer “popular prices”.
Nevertheless, there have been fewer and fewer showmen and dealers since the Corona pandemic. The catering industry has big problems finding employees. “There are small church consecrations that can no longer be held because there are no showmen,” said Kalb. While large folk festivals were able to replace missing applicants or companies with other showman businesses, smaller events were able to do this much less often.