A curfew after 9 p.m. or even the restriction of people meeting in the open air pushes people back indoors. Clubcommission criticizes the policy decision on open-space restrictions. As a study by Ireland’s Health Protection Surveillance Center shows, the risk of infection is 99.9 percent indoors. The 2021 festival summer is marked by great uncertainty. Many organizers, however, are determined to explore all possibilities despite the continuing ban on the event industry.
Where 70,000 people last celebrated together for over a week at the festival site on the Mecklenburg Lake District, there will be two festival weekends this year. At the end of June and the beginning of July, 35,000 visitors can be on site each time. The Fusion Festival is moving forward with a new concept and the organizers announced back in March that Fusion will take place in the summer of 2021. In order to refinance the additional expenses, among others for test stations in Hamburg and Berlin, the ticket costs will double. A ticket for the festival experience will cost visitors just over 200€.
oPEN or Cancelled
The world’s largest heavy metal festival in Wacken is also to take place this summer if possible. According to the organizers, they have prepared several concepts for it. It would be the 30th anniversary of the legendary festival. The fans, who travel from all over the world every year, have already bought up all the tickets. Either way, the Wacken Festival will take place, that’s what the organizers have firmly decided for 2021. Whether in the usual festival size or several smaller events spread over a longer period remains to be seen. “We remain hopeful and continue to plan,” said festival co-founder Thomas Jensen. “Our late event date on the last weekend in July allows us to observe the further development of the situation – for example, also with regard to the progress of the vaccination campaign and upcoming decisions by the federal government – and allows us a longer preparation time.”
A successful concept from North Rhine-Westphalia, which already worked well last year, is planned this year at the racecourse in Berlin Hoppegarten and has already been approved by the relevant authorities. The Strandkorb Festival will allow concerts with Jan Delay, Helge Schneider, Katherine Mehrling and many others from mid-August to September 2021. Tickets for the beach chairs can only be purchased in pairs. The beach chairs, each set up at a safe distance from one another, and the ingenious path system have been described by health authorities as exemplary.
Unfortunately, we will have to do without other music events this year. The Melt Festival in Gräfenhainichen (Saxony-Anhalt) has been cancelled. The date at the beginning of June cannot be kept due to the uncertain situation. However, individual concerts and smaller events at the end of the summer are conceivable.
The Fete de la Musique will also bring music to our ears via streaming this year, as it will in 2020. Normally, stages are set up in front of the bars and pubs in Berlin every year as part of the music event, and it feels like half the capital is too against.
The traditional festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, which had to forgo their anniversary editions last year, were scheduled for the second weekend in June 2021 with headliners such as Green Day, System Of A Down and Volbeat. According to the new concert agency responsible, Dreamhaus, they are to be staged again on the first weekend in June 2022. Which headliners will come then has not yet been determined. “We are working on the program,” said Dreamhaus spokeswoman Claudia Schulte. In a few weeks, ticket holders who already purchased tickets last year or this year could rebook them for 2022. More than 130,000 ticket holders had already changed their tickets from 2020 to this year.
At the Lollapalooza festival, which takes place in September around Berlin’s Olympiastation, everything is still open this year. No tickets can be bought on the website. However, it has not yet been canceled.
No Perspective
©Janis Trau
It is clear that the planning of such huge events requires months of advance planning. Also, only a few organizers can afford to change their plans again and again. The concepts that are developed today can be outdated in just a few weeks due to changes in hygiene regulations. The uncertainty in politics and the associated lack of perspective for the organizers make planning even more difficult. Much now seems to depend on the progress of the vaccinations. In the coming weeks, decisions will be made that will determine what the festival summer 2021 will look like and what we can expect.
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