Lollapalooza In Berlin?

Pollstar understands it would take place Sept. 13-14, although Festival Republic chief Melvin Benn – one of those said to be involved in bringing the American festival to Europe – is denying all knowledge of the event.

Festival Republic, co-owned by Irish entrepreneur Denis Desmond and Live Nation, already has a foothold in the German capital with Berlin Festival, which this year moved across the city from Tempelhof to the Arena Park in Kreuzberg. Benn’s also known to have a close connection with Lollapalooza co-promoter C3, which produces the festival in with WME’s Marc Geiger.

Six years ago Festival Republic worked with C3 to produce a festival called Vineland in New Jersey, but the project never really got off the ground.

However, it may be Melt Festival chief Stefan Lehmkuhl – who was brought in to run and book Berlin Festival a couple of years before FR bought a 51 percent stake in it in 2011 – who is the German end of the Lollapalooza deal. In his first year Lehmkuhl moved Berlin festival – which had been in various venues around the city — to Tempelhof, and almost doubled the crowd. At press time Lehmkuhl wasn’t commenting on whether he’s involved in any plan to bring Lollapalooza to Europe.

A move to Berlin would also suit Lollapalooza’s (and C3’s) global expansions, which have already made inroads into Australia and South America. The nearest Lollapalooza got to Europe was planning a 2013 festival in Israel, but the event in Tel Aviv was scrapped about eight months before it was to happen. Berlin and Tempelhof also present their own difficulties as neither the city nor its inhabitants are flush with money. It’s still possible to get a decent meal, a beer and change from $10. The 4 million or so people living in Berlin have much less spending power than other major cities such as Munich and Hamburg. Although the airport is suitable for a festival, it’s a vast site and needs at least 40,000 people to make it look busy. Staging Lollapalooza in the German capital in September would mean a head-to-head clash with Berlin Festival, although Benn says the latter’s 2015 dates aren’t yet fixed and it would be no surprise if it shifted to an earlier period in the festival calendar.

For example, moving Berlin Festival to the end of May could see it sharing acts with a similarly-styled festival such as Spain’s Primavera Sound in Barcelona.

Elsewhere, FR has scrapped its Hove Festival in Norway, claiming the launch of German promoter FKP Scorpio’s Tinderbox Festival in Denmark makes “what was a tough event economically into an almost impossible one.”

The press release announcing that there’ll be no Hove in 2015 said it wasn’t possible to go ahead “without similar level of support from the public institutions.” The Danish national press has been full of stories reporting the fuss that’s followed the revelation that the local council in Odense has agreed to pay out $4.09 million to bring Tinderbox to the city. In Scandinavia, where Scorpio now has a foothold in Denmark, Sweden and Finland, it only needs Norway to complete its hand. But company chief Folkert Koopmans says he’s no interest in moving on to the Hove site.

To team a Norwegian festival with the three Scandinavian events he has on the June 25-27 weekend, Koopmans may first need to find a field capable of holding 30,000. Hove also has a spotty history, going bust in 2008 with debts of about 15 million Norwegian kroner (then $ 2.2 million). FR bought it out of receivership but the event is hard to make profitable as the field at Arendal only has a capacity of a little more than 15,000. Despite selling out in recent years, regional daily paper Agderposten reckons the 2013 festival dropped a half-million dollars and going into 2014 had a deficit of $870.000. The same paper said this year’s festival was not so well attended.