Reeperbahn Festival Aims To Take ‘A Step Closer To Normality’ In September

Jettes performing at Reeperbahn Festival 2020.
Marvin Contessi – Jettes performing at Reeperbahn Festival 2020.
It remains to be seen how big an audience will be allowed on site in 2021.

The makers of Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany, announced that they were aiming to welcome festival visitors and conference delegates in person, Sept. 22-25.
Akua Naru on Reeperbahn
Robin Schmiedebach – Akua Naru on Reeperbahn

Low rates of cases, the growing vaccination campaign and an abundance of testing options offered “excellent prospects” for the 16th edition of Reeperbahn Festival 2021 to go ahead in “some form of normality.”

Hundreds of new and established acts usually take the stage in one of the 35 participating venues spread across and around Hamburg’s infamous Reeperbahn mile, tens of thousands of visitors usually buy a ticket to see them. 
Last year, the conference took place online-only, with gated access for delegates, while concerts were mostly streamed, with some of them taking place live in Hamburg, open to a limited audience. The offline program attracted some 8,000 visitors to 20 venues, where 140 live concerts, lectures, readings, discussions, films and visual art exhibitions took place over four days, while 150,000 visitors followed the freely accessible digital program. 1,480 delegates paid for conference access.
The year prior, 2019, marked the biggest year yet for Reeperbahn Festival, with more than 50,000 visitors, including 5,900 professional delegates from 55 nations, coming to Hamburg to witness some 600 concerts by 412 international acts, as well as a multi-faceted conference program covering all creative areas, from music, to film, to art and literature. 
 
Organizers around conference director Detlef Schwarte and managing director Alexander Schulz hope to “finally be able to welcome conference participants back in person again this year after 2020’s digital-only version.” 
As far as the final capacities are concerned, “everything will naturally operate in close consultation with the relevant authorities and in line with the rules that apply in September. More details on the actual status of plans will be announced here and in the course of the coming months,” a statement from Reeperbahn Festival reads.
FKP Scorpio co-CEO Stephan Thanscheidt.
Robin Schmiedebach – FKP Scorpio co-CEO Stephan Thanscheidt.
One of the speakers at last year

As usual, they expect “prominent guests from the worlds of culture and politics,” at the Reeperbahn Festival Opening on the first night, Sept. 22. On the last day, a jury of music biz experts led by jury president Tony Visconti will select the winner of the annual ANCHOR award.

The confirmed lineup for this year focuses on a wide range of mainly European acts and artists. Highlight so far include rapper Mavi Phoenix (AT), Goldroger (GER), indie-electronic artists Weval II (NL), pop act ILIRA (CZ), songwriters Antje Schomaker (GER), Dillon (GER/BR) and William Fitzsimmons (US), and more to be confirmed. 
The 35 participating venues feature everything from mostly grassroots music clubs all the way up to the iconic Elbphilharmonie, which will host five concerts for which reservations are now open, including RY X (AU), last year’s ANCHOR award winners ÄTNA, supported by te NDR Bigband (GER), Alice Phoebe Lou (ZA) and Niklas Paschburg (GER).
Alice Phoebe Lou, who has performed at Reeperbahn Festival in the past, commented, “My first Reeperbahn Festival experience was in the Jazz Cafe playing to a handful of people. I was amazed by the energy of the city and the different concerts we stumbled on. It felt like I was finally dipping into the music scene of Europe and that I was a part of something exciting. 
“Seven years later, much deeper into my musical life, I feel honored to be playing in the epic Elbphilharmonie. It gives me the feeling that all of these years of working hard as an independent artist have paid off, and it’s the perfect opportunity to put on a unique show with more instruments and different arrangements to mark this special occasion.”
Confirmed speakers for this year’s Reeperbahn Festival Conference program so far include Jack Conte (CEO Patreon, US), pianist and composer Hauschka (GER), Yasmina Banaszczuk (Head of Content Programming TikTok DACH, GER), Michael Krause (General Manager Europe Spotify, GER) as well as Vanessa Cutraro (Booking Agent Buback Tonträger, GER).
The digital event platform launched for last year’s hybrid event will return and make concerts and other parts of the conference available to anyone not able to be on site.