Rockezine.com interview with Summer Breeze Festival on Jul 27, 2006

with Ralf Nüsser on Jul 27, 2006

Regular visitors of Rockezine know that I’m a huge fan of the Summer Breeze Festival. Next to the variety of bands on the billing, the good organisation and the terrific stage light, what I mostly love about this festival is the atmosphere. The festival ground that is located on the edge of a small village in the south of Germany, where you can do your shopping at the grocery store on the corner. Just walk up the hill and you’ll find the campsite as a kind of free state in the hills, where you have a view on the campfires and torches at night. You can imagine my surprise when the Summer Breeze organisation pronounced that they have changed location this year. To know more about this, we did an interview with Ralf Nüsser, who can tell us all about it.
		Until last year Summer Breeze was located on the edge of the village of Abtsgemund. Why did you choose that location? Well, not really getting what you mean. Why we`ve chosen the old location? We have chosen the Abtsgmuend location for simply one reason: Achim Ostertag who initially started the festival 9 year ago is living there. But if you want to know why we changed the location, I can tell you that the old location was simply too small as we were sold out a few times and we couldn`t see any chance to grow. To grow also means to better for the fans. More space, better service and so on. Also we had a bit of a problem with the so far location as the local government has plans of rebuilding some part of the area just in the time when SB is supposed to take place. So that was another reason to move. Then we got the offer to do it in Dinkelsbuehl. So we went for it. And here we are.
		SB has grown a lot throughout the years: did that influence the decision to move to a new location? Well, as mentioned above it certainly did influence the decision as well. We all do the SB for a living so we have to make sure to earn some money. As only then we can move on doing the SB in the future.
		How did you find this new spot? Someone we work with sent us a list of airfields in that region. So we contacted all of them and the one in Dinkelsbuehl showed the quickest reaction and organized everything. Also had a meeting with the local government. When we first got there for a meeting we were overwhelmed as the city of Dinkelsbuehl is a medieval old town, really beautiful charming. The rest is history and we all found together and everyone there is about to support us.
		What are the advantages of this new location? It`s way bigger than the previous site. The camping ground is way bigger and just next to the festival site. Not even a street to cross. In case of rain it won`t be such a problem to get the cars out like it was previously. And the area around is nicer, too.
		What about the visibility of the two stages from every corner of the festival ground? The view is perfect. No matter where you stay. The stages are more or less next to each other and not in a corner like so far. We had to do it due to technical reasons and meanwhile we think this would have been a good idea anyway. We`ll see if it was a good idea. In case it wasn`t we will again change it.
		Usually the village was overwhelmed with festival crowd that would be shopping at the local stores. What was their reaction to this big loss of income? That`s a good question indeed. Well most of them seemed to be very disappointed of course. But you know we couldn`t do it there anymore so we had to move on. Some of the Abtsgmuend people did come along with us and have a booth at the festival. Let`s see what the shops in Dinkelsbuehl say when the can increase their turnover
		Are there any more comments you want to make about the new location? One thing is to be mentioned: There is a strict glass prohibition on the new camping ground and festival site. It will be strictly checked. We are sorry to have to do so but this is essential to have a SB 2007. We are very happy to have found this new site. It`s a bit tricky for to organize everything now as there is no infra structure there at all and we don`t know if we have forgotten about a few things, which were quite normal in Abtsgmund. But we are quite positive everything will be running smoothly. We hope the fans will like as much as we do. We need everybody`s help to make it happen and also we need the fans` critics to se what can be done better next year.

		This makes it all clear, I guess, but I`m very anxious to see it for myself. Experiencing the organisation until now, I fully trust in the advantages this new location in Dinkelsbuehl has to offer. We’ll wait and see. The review in September will show it to you readers. (Marcia Gransbergen)