Access All AreasAccess sits down with the director of Lollapalooza Berlin and Yourope board member to discuss European festivals, equality on-site and Donald Trump
As festival promoters, we can make a change if we can make a difference. If it can help to change mindsets, this is a mission that I am personally very proud of: To belong to a European festival family that has such values.
When somebody comes to a festival, that is their family for those days when they are on-site. You have the opportunity to meet and mingle with people from other cultures and other nationalities. But it doesn’t matter what colour you are, race, or sex or origin you have. I believe that festivals have a very positive impact on people because the whole environment is packed with music, culture and people smiling.
We should take care of our environment. Festivals produce so much garbage, so we are asking how can we tackle that and how can we become greener? With the ‘Take A Stand’ campaign, we as festivals and promoters can make a movement that shows our values on sustainability.
We all have to respect, tolerate, speak up and take a stand for something. To believe in the fact that each individual can make a change. We have seen that in history and I, personally, would like to achieve and change but in a very positive way.
In my world, the UK will always stay in Europe. Our amazing friends here in the UK are shocked. How could this happen? Nobody thought this could happen. But how could the president of the United States now be Donald Trump? We don’t want to have more surprises like that.
In 2010, I became a member of Yourope. Now I’m a board member and in my seventh year. It’s a great organisation; we have almost 100 members.
Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds and Latitude—these are all festivals that I respect a lot. When we talk about content and innovation and design, these festivals are strong. They’re in the top league.
You get the sense of really positive energies at a festival, and soak them in and take them back home. But festivals are also places where we can show and create a certain project, where we create awareness for certain things.
Innovations are not for everybody. The way every festival creates its artistic content is in a different way. That’s the beauty of a festival.
Lollapalooza Berlin 2017 takes places on 8-9 September. For more information about Yourope’s ‘Take A Stand’ campaign, go to yourope.org.