‘We’re Here To Stay’: Lollapalooza Berlin Returns To Olympic Stadium In 2019

Lollapalooza Berlin – Lollapalooza Berlin 218
Alison Wonderland controls the crowd

After four years of moving sites, Lollapalooza Berlin may have finally found a permanent home at the German capital’s Olympic Stadium and Olympic Park.

It doesn’t often occur, that a festival takes place at four different locations over four editions, especially if each edition is a success. The organizers of Lollapalooza Berlin had to go through exactly that – and basically create a new festival from scratch each time. The German offshoot of the popular Live Nation brand premiered at the former airfield Berlin Tempelhof in 2015.

Because the site was converted into a refugee shelter in 2016, that year’s Lolla took place at Berlin’s Treptower Park, a decision that was met with great resistance from residents and monument conservators who worried about festivalgoers damaging a war memorial on site.

Organizers Goodlive AG and promoter Festival Republic were able to secure a one-time permit for the event, so it was clear that Lollapalooza had to move again in 2017 – to a horserace track in Hoppegarten, just outside Berlin.

Some 85,000 people attended the event, a new visitor record.

However, recognizing the infrastructural problems Hoppegarted poses as a festival site – a claim the operators of Hoppegarten refute – it was announced that in 2018 the festival would take place at Berlin’s Olympiapark.

This year’s lineup featured  The Weeknd, Kraftwerk 3D, Imagine Dragons, The National, David Guetta, Alison Wonderland, Kygo, Casper, Armin Van Buuren, Liam Gallagher, Ben Howard, Dua Lipa and more.

“It’s hard to find the words to describe how much gratitude, respect and high regard I have for our internal and external teams, the national and international colleagues in the UK and U.S.!”, festival director Fruzsina Szép wrote in an emotional statement.

“Thanks for the trust from our 70,000 visitors per day, who did not fail us in year four.”

The event will remain at Olympiapark in 2019. Already knowing where the festival was going to take place a year in advance was an unusual feeling, Szep continued. “Thank you Olympiapark, thank you Herta [Berlin’s premier soccer club], and thank you Berlin! We came to stay!”

Lollapalooza Berlin is the first music festival that’s going to take place at the Olympic Stadium on a regular basis.

The stadium regularly hosts concert, for which it has a capacity of 68,000. U2 set the current visitor record in 2009, when the band’s center stage allowed for 100,000 fans to witness the show live.

Seeing that Lollapalooza utilizes the stadium as well as the park, known to locals as Maifeld, the festival has plenty of capacity to grow, Christoph Meyer, director events & communication and member of the Olympic Stadium’s executive board, told Pollstar.

He said, “in 2019, Lollapalooza will return to Olympiastadion and Olympiapark Berlin. As far as the years after are concerned, talks have been set. Basically, the promoters as well as the operators are very content.”