Music Fans Shrug E.Coli Scare

It evidently takes more than an E.Coli scare to deter music fans from visiting Hamburg, Germany, as thousands flocked to visit Elbjazz Festival and the opening shows of this year’s Stadtpark season.

Only a few days after Spain said it was considering legal action against German regional authorities for blaming its cucumbers on the bacteria that killed 20 people, Elbjazz Festival press officer Mara Horstmann was reporting crowds up by 50 percent.

Last year’s inaugural Elbjazz pulled 10,000 across two days but this year Horstmann reckons it was closer to 15,000.

By the time the festival happened and Hurts was pulling near to a full house for the third show of Karsten Jahnke’s summer season in the 4,000-capacity Stadtpark June 7, the Spanish cucumber growers looked to be off the hook.

The Hamburg food inspectors turned their attention to a bad batch of bean sprouts after learning that some of the victims may have eaten them at a restaurant in nearby Lubeck.

Apparently they’d been in Hamburg to attend a harbour festival May 6-8.

By the time Germany’s national disease centre started focusing on the bean sprouts, the financial damage suffered by the Spanish cucumber growers was said to be more than $1 billion.

The first two shows of the Stadtpark season were May 27-28 and featured Lotto King Karl, which sold out the first show and came close to selling out the second.

The acts at Elbjazz included Paolo Nutini, Wawau Adler & Pee Wee Ellis, Soweto Kinch, Menina Loop, Clara Ponty, and Diazpora.