Goths Enjoy M’Era Luna Gloom

Dressed like the sort of people who might not enjoy bright sunlight, more than 23,000 goth music fans apparently reveled in the grey, drizzly gloom at a former British airbase in Hildesheim, Germany.

It was one of the best crowds M’era Luna has drawn to the Flugplatz Hildesheim-Drispenstedt airbase in years – well up on last year when pouring rain proved to be even too miserable for all but 18,000 goths.

"We had a really good walk-up and that made a lot of the difference," said festival promoter Folkert Koopmans, whose Hamburg-based FKP Scorpio is enjoying a very successful outdoor season.

"I won’t know if it’s a record year until the end of the month," he told Pollstar. But signs are good, as the 25,000-capacity Highfield Festival August 15-17 has already sold out and the following week’s Chiemsee Reggae Summer is likely to do similar business.

An added bonus is a one-off with Die Ärzte on the Chiemsee site at Ubersee August 20, two days before the festival begins. The Berlin-based punk rockers are also playing Highfield.

Among the acts at Hildesheim August 9-10 were Apocalyptica, Fields Of The Nephilim, Frank The Baptist, Christian Death, Blitzkid, Cinema Strange and Combichrist.