FKP’s Ups And Downs

Hamburg-based promoter FKP Scorpio had its ups and downs over the August 17-19 weekend, with its Chiemsee Reggae fest back on track but Highfield suffering from lower than usual ticket sales.

Chiemsee Reggae Summer Festival in Bavaria – which had a poor year in 2006 – got back on course by selling 22,000 three-day tickets. But Highfield Festival was nearly 5,000 adrift of its average crowd.

"It’s not the result that I wanted and the strange thing is that Highfield was the only one of my festivals that had good weather this year," said FKP chief Folkert Koopmans. "But I think the rain we’ve had this summer has caused nearly all the August festivals to be down on last year."

Highfield, which is on the waterfront of the Hohenfelden Reservoir near Erfurt, regularly averages a 23,000-plus crowd but the rain looks to have diluted the market to the point where it struggled just past the 19,000 mark.

Last year it wasn’t the rain that put the damper on Chiemsee Reggae but Bavaria’s "zero tolerance" drug laws, which left Koopmans complaining that "the police still try to search out very small quantities that wouldn’t bother the authorities anywhere else in Germany."

Clearly not bothered by the proverbial heavy vibes of 2006, the numbers at the Chiemsee Reggae site at Ubersee were back up to the levels of the previous three years.

The Chiemsee acts included Gentleman & The Far East Band, Yellowman, Alpha Blondy, Black Dillinger, Ganjaman, Jimmy Cliff, Blumentopf, Sergent Garcia and Babylon Circus.

Among the main attractions at Highfield were Kaiser Chiefs, Interpol, Millencolin, Billy Talent, Moneybrother, Silverchair, Funeral For A Friend and Fall Out Boy.