From Club Night To 50,000-Cap Festival: The Story Of Nibirii Told By Its Founder Björn Grimm

Nibirii is the name of a festival taking place at the Dürener Badesee, 30 minutes from Cologne, Germany. It originated as a club night at Cologne’s famous electronic music club Bootshaus in 2017, and launched as a standalone festival in 2019.

It only took a few years to establish itself as one of the country’s most popular electronic music festivals presenting the best of hard techno, trance, drum & bass, and bass music. In 2025, Nibirii welcomed 50,000 festivalgoers to its scenic lakeside site.

This year’s dates are Aug. 28-30, and the lineup is led by Klangkuenstler, I Hate Models, Vini Vici, Dax J b2b Daria Kolosova, Dimension, Wilkinson, Netsky, Marlon Hoffstadt and Hannah Laing. Also featured on the bill are Muzz, Fox Stevenson, Felix Kröcher, Anna Reusch and Andromedik, plus Cologne talent like Rebko and Enaly who came up through the club pipeline.

Björn Grimm, co-founder and initiator of Nibirii, tells Pollstar that the idea for the Bootshaus club night that laid the foundations for the festival came after listening to a Vini Vici track back in 2017. “It made me think of a concept for Bootshaus Cologne: bringing together sounds that were underrepresented there back then at an event that combined several genres which were pretty underground at that time,” he recalls.

It was this concept that mattered most to Grimm, who’s a well-known techno DJ and producer himself, finding a name for the event was secondary. “I came up with the name Nibirii because a friend of mine was talking about the mystical planet ‘Nibiru’,” Grimm explains, “I liked that word and sound, so I turned it into ‘Nibirii’ – a place or planet where rules are different and music is the philosophy, where creativity is key, and life is easy.”

Back in 2017, Grimm had no idea where this idea would lead to, all remembers is “the energy that was running through my body when I had the idea. Truly electrifying. Now I can tell that it was an indication that this was a big idea.”

The success of the club night, which led to taking the event outdoors and turn it into a festival, was community-driven, shaped by “the surroundings the idea was born into,” as Grimm puts it. “The strong support from the Bootshaus team and their community made the start of Nibirii a great success. It was also the connection we have with the artists, and the very warm, family-like vibe we created, that gave me the confidence to go bigger,” he says.

According to Grimm, “running a festival has similarities to club shows, but it is 100 times more intense. There are risks everywhere which need to be dealt with. For sure the weather is the biggest risk and something we keep an eye on every day. Running clubs is comparatively easy because you have your routines and a team that is close to each other and kind of small compared to a festival team, which is hundreds of people strong.”

The site of Nibirii, Dürener Badesee, is beautiful, but it also holds its challenges. Building on sand, for example, which costs a lot more than placing stages on solid concrete ground. The immense production costs are the obvious reason, why festivals are feeling the pressures of the current live economy more than most events.

Grimm confirms that “making the event work economically is a very challenging topic. We are always trying to work closely together with the companies around us. The strong relationships with the artists are also very helpful to make bookings possible that wouldn’t have been possible on a regular basis. The goal was and is to build the brand and the story with the event once a year, to reduce marketing spend and rely on organic engagement. In the end it is a sum of adjustments that saves budget. But to be fair, those savings are always invested elsewhere, because investing in details is very important in my opinion.”

It would be a misconception to think that an electronic music festival saved a lot of costs on the artist side, because most DJs travel alone. On the other hand, Grimm explains, “artists nowadays also cost a fortune sometimes. Seeing the stage concepts brought by artists, soundchecks, entourage, I think there is a lot of rock n’ roll in the techno scene nowadays.”

The first edition of Nibirii in 2019 didn’t offer camping, but Grimm and his team felt “that the experience of camping is closely connected to the festival experience itself. That’s why we added the campsite to the festival. Something that was also very challenging, because the area around the festival is owned by farmers who grow corn and other plants. So we always have to keep an eye on what’s planted each year and when they are going to harvest. It is very important to have close communication with the farmers to stay up to date and to plan ahead.”

The reason Nibirii was able to overcome the challenging economy pretty much since the year it launched, and thrive in a competitive market for electronic music festivals is down to several aspects, according to Grimm, who explains, “first of all it is the people coming to Nibirii. The area around Cologne was always special. Even artists noticed that their gigs were always different (in a good way). I can’t describe it, but this is a magical thing about the area.

“The other aspect is the location itself. The lake that cools you down when the sun is shining. You can take a bath and enjoy a cold drink with your friends whilst having your feet in the chilled water. This vibe in combination with the white sand at the beach directly catapults you into a vacation mood. And last but not least, the well-curated artists that are playing. Of course there is so much more, but these are just three aspects to point out.”

Nibirii returns to Dürener Badesee Aug. 28-30, 2026. Phase 3 tickets are on sale, with three-day weekend passes starting at €219 ($253), excluding camping. Two-day and Friday-only tickets are available, as well as some premium options and other upgrades.

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