Q’s With Reeperbahn Festival’s Alexander Schulz & Detlef Schwarte

A lot has happened since last year’s Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg. Pollstar caught up with Detlef Schwarte and Alexander Schulz, co-CEOs of Inferno Events, the agency that runs the annual talent festival and industry conference, which celebrates its 14th edition Sept. 18-21. They talked about their international ambitions, new program items, and how to navigate the 1,000-plus events that await visitors of Reeperbahn Festival 2019.

Alexander Schulz: First things first: Our new Grand Opening format, called Doors Open, is starting on late Wednesday evening and begins with a one-hour show followed by two full concerts by Dope Lemon (a.k.a. Angus Stone) and Feist. The show, hosted by Charlotte Roche and Ray Cokes, will present this year’s Reeperbahn Festival’s main topics: Focus Country Australia, gender balance in music and of course the nominees and the judges of our international talent contest Anchor: Kate Nash, Peaches, Tony Visconti, Bob Rock and others. Doors Open will be streamed via French-German public broadcaster ARTE online and on Facebook Live.

The most spectacular new venue of Reeperbahn Festival is the Hamburg Planetarium with a seated capacity of 250, where Icelandic artist Olafur Arnalds will world premiere his 360-degree multimedia work “Ekki Hugsa.” “Ekki Hugsa” is one out of four different commissioned works of this year’s Reeperbahn Festival and will be performed four times in total (daily at 6 p.m.), before it will be touring through other planetariums globally. Other works were this year commissioned to the Danish ensemble Efterklang and to Anna Ternheim with Kaiser Quartett at the Elbphilharmonie as well as to the virtual reality production “A Symphony Of Noise,” inspired by Mathew Herbert.

For the first time ever, the Country Music Association, CMA, will present a showcase, and we are also presenting an international panel session dealing with this genre, as country music becomes more and more popular in Europe.

We offer two new areas in our Festival Village: Around one dozen musical instrument brands, like Fender, Yamaha, etc., are asking all Reeperbahn Festival attendees to check out their new instruments and tools in the “Music Maker’s Playground,” while the new “Future Playground” will present intelligent, sustainable and, above all, creative ideas for the music sector and beyond.

The New Music Award, presented by the collective of the “young” German national public radio stations (ARD), moved to Reeperbahn Festival, after taking place in Berlin annually for the last seven years.

Schulz: The activities at SXSW in Austin, Texas, in March, and the Reeperbahn Festival’s New York edition, in June, have been part of the annual calendar for some time now. So it’s no surprise that NYC, with nearly 60 music business representatives from Europe, is also the destination where Tony Visconti annually presents his judges for our international talent contest Anchor.

Upcoming destinations include Accra in Ghana (November) in cooperation with Music in Africa; Los Angeles (March), where we partner with Musexpo; and, after that, Nashville (May), in cooperation with MusicBiz.

Detlef Schwarte: And, in late May, we realized the first Reeperbahn Festival Beijing in cooperation with the local WISE conference. We presented eight artists from Europe and China and had a delegation of 25 music professionals from six European countries that were involved in the conference and several networking events. It was a real success and we received great feedback from everyone.

Schulz: It’s about promoting cooperation between German and European artists and artists from the respective destinations and enabling new networks between music industry players. As the main European music platform for international and transcultural exchange, Reeperbahn Festival is the best stakeholder to create these synergies between Europe and other territories. That’s why the German Federal Foreign Office is supporting these activities. If a further effect is that the Reeperbahn Festival continues to gain international recognition, we will of course gladly accept that.

Schwarte: Whenever you tell us which region or market still needs a Reeperbahn Festival, we will be ready to go…

Schulz: The brand is well established among music business people globally. But, as one of our USPs is to always address both audiences – public and professionals – at the same time, there is still a long way to go in order to make the brand well known among the public internationally. We can only handle this challenge in cooperation with the relevant public media in the very territory. 

Schulz: That’s right. But our main public funder is the federal government through the Minister for Culture and the Media (for RBF in Germany) and through the Federal Foreign Office (RBF International Spin-Offs). The City of Hamburg expects us to keep the main event in the city, so that they would have the chance to use it for city marketing, etc.

Schwarte: From a conference perspective, the session program that is divided into 11 thematic threats really looks promising. We have great speakers confirmed like Matt Schwarz, managing director, Live Nation GSA; author Cornelia Funke; Holger Hübner and Thomas Jensen, founders of Wacken Open Air; Puja Patel, editor-in-chief of Pitchfork; DJ and author Paul Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky; and German rap star Kool Savas.

Exclusively for music professionals, I recommend attending the Helga! Festival Awards Show and a few of the around 50 showcases of our international partners, where you will still find many, many artists looking for deals.

And the Circular Futures Supermarket, presenting sustainable innovations, ideas and products and, also based in the Festival Village, the first Summit on Music & Sustainable Development Goals in cooperation with the United Nations.

Schulz: BBC Radio 1 Introducing, hosted by Hew Stevens, with UK talents Joy Crookes, Bloxx and more (Wednesday, 8 p.m.); Keychange 2.0, the presentation of the next phase, with Peaches, Kate Nash, Puja Patel and many more (Thursday, 11 a.m.-12 p.m.); RBF International Reception, presenting the programs of the five Reeperbahn Festival International Spin-Offs 2019-2020 (Friday, 11 a.m.-12 p.m.); Warner Music Night with Foals, Charlotte Lawrence and more (Friday, 8 p.m.); Anchor 2019, the finals, with among others Dermot Kennedy, special music performances by the judges, etc. (Saturday, 5 p.m., entry for music professionals only).

Schwarte: Including all program areas we present more than 1000 events this year. Still, I guess after year one we would not have thought that this development was what we realistically could have expected. And that may be good fortune: building up the event from year to year, assuming a moderate growth and not thinking too much in big numbers.

Schwarte: Good people, exciting artists, successful business in nice atmosphere

Schulz: Something strategic, which does not really depend on a certain destination, and which we have already launched from a brand-building perspective, is to create more media content and own media production in order to build a broader musical home under our brand for both, the music industry, artists and the public. 

Schwarte: Not just one: Biffy Clyro, The Pigeon Detectives, Kraftklub. And yes, normally I can see a few acts per night.

Schulz: Bon Iver. A few on Saturday.

Schulz: A program with 1,000-plus events can’t be created without a great team and good teamwork. So, we really have to thank every single team member for their passion and professionalism, which is the basis for the festival.

Schwarte: Especially for delegates from abroad it might make sense to consider to take part in our so-called BEX – the Berlin Experience of Reeperbahn Festival on Tuesday, Sept. 17. On the day before Reeperbahn Festival’s official kickoff, we are again offering a one-day program in Germany’s capital that gives an overview of the German music industry and visits some of the most relevant music and media companies based in the city. The participants will meet high-level executives and insiders and get the chance to network on the Reeperbahn Festival train ride from Berlin to Hamburg. More information can be found on our website where international delegates can register for this really intense and enjoyable program.