Thousands of visitors came to Simple Minds, Selig, Kim Wilde and the Potsdamer choirs.
A great festival for not so much people – the balance of the Stadtwerke Festival 2011 is sobering for the municipal utilities. Significantly fewer visitors than in previous years were not least because of the cold and rain in the way the new pleasure garden for the last time to see Peter Paffhausen established program. The longtime head of public utilities and hard-initiator had to step down in May due to a non-transparent procurement procedures – and so the future of the free festival is uncertain.
This weekend, less than 50,000 visitors celebrated the three days. In many a year there were twice as many visitors in the pleasure garden, for example, as ZZ Top appeared. Inflicted by the weather, the eve of the municipal utility was the main evening feast. The performance of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff impressed with 380 singers from the three largest Potsdamer choirs and musicians of the New Chamber Orchestra, Potsdam under the guidance of Ud Joffe through accurate peppy staging of Latin songs sung from Benediktbeuren and the vocal power of the choral society has become a highlight . The Carmina Burana had lots of audience, thousands had arrived and the Lustgarten was up to the forecourt in front full of people. Only after two encores, the participants were released. Although the seats for the concert evening after two days were awarded, a number of visitors came only after the appearance of Emma Shapplin and they did well because of the hard rock which the French woman offered did not quite fit the classic evening. At least 15 000 visitors attended the two performances on Friday.
All groups and artists came to the festival, said municipal spokesman Stefan Klotz. Despite the bad weather they hadn’t cancelled and there were no technical problems. Especially on Saturday, when only 12,000-15,000 visitors were counted throughout the day, the artists have trembled with the guests. Simple Minds frontman Jim Carr came from his stage and delighted the visitors came with his music, including the classic “Belfast Child”. And then Selig and Zucchero tried to hot up the audiences despite heavy rain and only twelve degrees air temperature. On Sunday, Kim Wilde gave her the best evergreens, before ex-Bee Gee Robin Gibb finished this year’s Stadtwerkefest.
Was it also the end of the three-day festival? About the future of the spectacle and the public has never quantified the cost is now discussing city politics. There was repeated criticism in recent years, of high prices of public utilities on the one hand and an expensive, three-day festival on the other side. This year the festival will have cost € 820 000, a majority of which had been taken over by sponsors such as the gas grid AG and the caterer.