Features
End Of The Ring Cycle
One of Europe’s largest and most prestigious festivals is in danger of disappearing from the summer calendar after a court ruled June 30 that Marek Lieberberg cannot use the Rock am Ring name away from the Nürburgring motor racing track.
The festival has been running in Germany since 1985 and regularly attracts 80,000-plus people per day.
Lieberberg had plans to move the event away from the Formula One track, after failing to agree terms with new site owners Capricorn.
On hearing of Lieberberg’s plans to shift Rock am Ring to a new location, Nürburgring GmbH asked the German Patent and Trade Office to grant an injunction to prevent him from doing so.
The problem, as the Koblenz court recognized at a preliminary hearing June 23, is that both Lieberberg and the Formula One track have “common ownership” of the event title and neither can use it without the other’s permission.
Lieberberg says his lawyers are looking at the exact wording of the ruling and deciding on whether he should appeal, but he says the outcome of the court case doesn’t make any material difference to him.
“They went to court because in an interview with Der Spiegel I said I was moving the festival, but I’ve moved on from Rock am Ring and will be presenting a new festival on the first weekend of June 2015,” he told Pollstar. “I haven’t even thought what I will call it, either Rock im Rhein, Rock At HQ, or Rock At Base.”
Lieberberg’s search for a new site has focused mainly on the former NATO HQ at Rheindahlen or another former military airfield at Mendig.
DEAG chief Peter Schwenkow and a festival team of Wizard Promotions chief Ossy Hoppe, son Oliver and recently acquired UK promoter Stuart Galbraith have subsequently taken over Lieberbg’s slot at the Nürburgring with a new event called “Green Hell – Rockfestival am Nürburgring.”