Eschwege (dpa/lhe) – After a two-year Corona break, Hessen’s largest open-air festival starts again this Wednesday. According to the organizers, the five-day “Open Flair” in Eschwege (Werra-Meißner district) is as good as sold out. “The rush here is very high,” said festival organizer Alexander Urlaub. “We are very happy and glad that we can celebrate a real festival again.”
Around 25,000 people a day attend the event according to the holiday. Around 95 percent of the tickets were already sold in 2019 before the corona pandemic. There were only a few returns. In addition to the visitors, the artists also supported the festival. “We were able to take over the artist program from 2020 with very few exceptions,” said Urlaub. Among others, the Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro, the Cologne musicians von AnnenMayKantereit and the singer-songwriter Clueso will be on stage at the festival.
However, there were problems in the organizational area. On the one hand, numerous specialists have migrated from the event industry in the course of the corona pandemic and are now missing. On the other hand, there is a lack of equipment. “Almost all events that could not take place in 2020 and 2021 will take place this summer. This leads to shortages,” explained Urlaub. The sound system this year, for example, had to be procured from South Africa. Toilet vans, mobile showers and cloakroom containers are in short supply.
The result is significantly higher costs. “Compensating for them by increasing ticket prices was not an option, since almost all tickets were already sold before the pandemic,” explained Urlaub. “So we have a calculation from 2019 with completely different prices now. We don’t really know where we’ll end up with it.”
The “Open Flair” has always taken place on the second weekend in August of each year since 1985 – with the exception of the last two years. The program features a mixture of music, cabaret and children’s entertainment.
