Superbloom: Goodlive Launches New 45,000-Cap Festival At Munich’s Olympic Park In Germany

Lollapalooza Berlin Promoter Goodlive is launching a new two-day festival in Munich’s Olympic Park, Sept. 5-6, 2020.

While Superbloom and Lolla Berlin will do down on the same weekend in 2020, they are not meant to be sister or twin events. While there may be some lineup overlaps, as happens with many festival in Europe during the summer season, promoters told Pollstar that both events will be two very different animals. 

Festival director Fruzsina Szép, who developed the entire festival concept including its name, explained the meaning of Superbloom to Pollstar: “A so-called Superbloom is a very rare and absolutely unique phenomenon where an extremely large amount of wildflower seeds awakes and blossoms at the same time. This phenomenon is a colourful spectacle of an extraordinary kind and exceptionally beautiful.”

“Gastronomy plays an important role in our concept as well,” Szép continued, therefore we will create a big variety of food and drink offers that will also include the local tastes and, of course, the charm of a Munich Biergarten.” She plans to realise a lot of those ideas in partnership with local players and institutions.

Szép’s team wasn’t able to confirm how many stages Superbloom would boast or  whether any indoor spaces of the Olympic Park, such as the 15,500-capacity Olympic Hall, would be utilised as well. 

Lollapalooza Berlin welcomed 85,000 visitors over two days at this year’s fifth edition at the Olympic Stadium Berlin, Sept. 7-8. Goodlive is aiming for 45,000 at the premiere of Superbloom.

Szép had accomplished the mammoth task of relocating Lollapalooza Berlin four times in a row, until finally finding a permanent home at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium in 2018, and making each edition a success. Still, the Lolla brand came with a few guidelines, Lolla presets so to speak, that every Lollapalooza festival in the world adheres to. 

Superbloom is the first event, where Szép was given absolutely free rein, a fact she clearly enjoys. “I never had the chance to build a brand from scratch. I’ve been working on the concept, the designs, the content for the past two months, and it’s something really special to be allowed to do something like that,” she said.

What made it extra-special was the fact that Szép grew up in Munich. “It’s a matter that is very close to my heart. I hope it’ll prove to be successful. No one can say, of course, but we want to establish a new brand in Germany and Europe.”

She didn’t mind taking on an additional festival, now that Lollapalooza Berlin has found a home, and emphasized that most of her team would be focused on Superbloom in the coming months: “It’s like having a five-year old child that can eat, walk and even go to the loo by itself. But a new-born baby still needs to be fed. Actually, this baby hasn’t even been delivered yet.”

Superbloom isn’t the first festival to make use of Munich Olympic Park’s picturesque outdoor grounds, which are a sight to behold. Visitors enter the site from an elevated plateau, overlooking the entire park and its multiple sports and entertainment venues, including the expansive 70,000-capacity Olympic Stadium. The roof of the stadium and the Olympic Hall were designed to resemble the Bavarian alps, and are surrounded by forests, lakes and rolling green hills. People visit the park to stroll, hike, swim, boat, relax, and, of course, to be entertained.

The Olympic Park served as a backdrop for DEAG’s Rockavaria festival in 2015 and 2016. Even Rock Im Park, today one of Germany’s most famous festivals, took place at the Park in its early years, 1995/1996. 

Now Superbloom will take over the park in September, according to Szép, “a new brand, a new color, a new identity, a new festival for Munich, together with Munich and the Region. A new festival brand that touches all senses. We hope to be able to create a festival to fall in love with, and that Superbloom becomes an annual tradition in the German and the European festival calendar.”