Reeperbahn Festival Releases Anchor Award Documentary (Video)

Yard Act accepting the 2021 Anchor Award at St. Pauli Theater in Hamburg, Germany.
Axel Heimken/picture alliance via Getty Images – Yard Act accepting the 2021 Anchor Award at St. Pauli Theater in Hamburg, Germany.
The award has been part of Reeperbahn Festival since 2016.

Reeperbahn Festival, like any good talent festival in the world, is all about exposing up-and-coming bands to a new audience as well as business professionals, who are able to take their careers to the next level.

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To underscore this commitment, the team behind Reeperbahn Festival decided to highlight one of the 400-plus artists performing in Hamburg each year with a special prize, the Anchor Award. 
The concept is simple: a jury made up of music biz professionals does what any visitor to Reeperbahn Festival would do: go to the clubs and watch the shows. Only difference is, the jury focuses particularly on the Anchor nominees. They check out and evaluate their performances and decide on one winner.
Easier said than done. Since the Anchor Award was launched in 2016, producer legend Tony Visconti has been presiding overt the jury. Aside from the president, jury members are swapped each year. The 2021 Anchor Award jury consisted of U.K. singer Emeli Sandé, U.S. songwriter Tayla Parx, German singer and actress Yvonne Catterfeld, U.K. songwriters Tom Odell and Jacob Banks. 
In 2021, following a year of going all-virtual, the jury met in Hamburg in person again to enjoy all that’s great about an event like Reeperbahn Festival – live music performed by great talent in the city’s most iconic clubs – and to do its job of choosing the 2021 Anchor Award winner.
They attended the concerts of nominees May The Muse (GER), Florence Arman (UK/AUT), Lie Ning (GER), OSKA (AUT), PVA (GBR) and Yard Act (GBR). The latter “just blew us away,” said jury president Visconti, adding, “it was quite an emotional experience for me to finally see some live performances in Hamburg again.” 
For the first time, a camera team accompanied the jury on its mission. The resulting film offers some fascinating insights into the difficult process of choosing a winner amongst so many great acts. It’s also an opportunity to show anybody that has been on the fence about making the trip to Germany in September what exactly they’re missing out on.

Last but not least, it introduces the 2021 Anchor Award nominees, all of which are fantastic live acts. The documentary is hosted by Tom Neuwirth, better known as 2014 Eurovision Song Contest winner Conchita Wurst, who also moderated the 2021 Anchor Award ceremony in Hamburg alongside TV and radio host Hadnet Tesfai.