Das Fiesta Europa

Das Fest became Das Fiesta Europa after organizers of the event secured sufficient European Union funding to stage a week-long festival of world music as a prelude to this year’s three-day event.

The free festival at Gunther Klotz Park, Karlsruhe, regularly attracts 75,000 per day and it isn’t unusual for it to do 100,000, although festival booker Rolf Fluhrer made Fiesta Europa a much smaller affair.

Fluhrer, who has booked Das Fest since 1988 and has seen it grow from 10,000 people per day, put the acts in two smaller 700-capacity tents and waited until the main festival July 18-20 before opening up the main arena. The talent came from EU countries including Poland, Finland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania.

This year the crowd in front of the main stage was up to its usual average of about 70,000, although rain on the third day meant Roisin Murphy and Willy de Ville played in front of about 40,000.

When it rains at Das Fest, some visitors tend to leave the main arena and explore the covered areas on the site.

The acts playing in front of a huge crowd at Freiburg included Sportfreunde Stiller, KT Tunstall, Fettes Brot, Who Made Who and The Beautiful Girls.