Chiemsee Revamp A Success

FKP Scorpio’s decision to make its Chiemsee Reggae festival in Germany less of a genre-specific event paid off in spades as the renamed Chiemsee Summer added 10,000 per day to last year’s 25,000 attendance.

That's it for another year. FKP Scorpio's Stephan Thanscheidt and Folkert Koopmans relax at the end of Highfield Festival, the last of the company's major German festivals.

Widening Chiemsee’s musical reach and attracting a 35,000 crowd brought the German promoter’s 2014 festival ticket sales to 425,000.

That more than makes up for Getaway Aug. 7-9, the second of the company’s Swedish festivals, which saw attendances plunge by nearly half from 14,000 to 8,500 per day. Highfield Aug. 15-17 and goth gathering M’Era Luna (Aug. 9-10), FKP’s other two late summer German festivals, also weighed in by selling out their 25,000 capacities.

Apart from its many German festivals, five of which might be considered majors, FKP also has outdoor events in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and The Netherlands.

“We changed Chiemsee because roots reggae has kind of gone in the German market,” FKP chief Folkert Koopmans explained. The first day of Chiemsee – which was known as Chiemsee Rocks – has always included other styles of music, but this year the entire five-day event was programmed that way and included Placebo, Queens Of The Stone Age, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World, Beatsteaks, and Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, many of which were also at Highfield.

Givem that Chiemsee is in Bavaria and Highfield is near Leipzig, there’s a suspicion that there’s sufficient distance to allow them to be developed as twinned festivals, along the lines of Scorpio’s Hurricane and Southside festivals.