Overwhelming media feedback for the 19th Wacken Open Air

The Wacken Open Air once again managed to climb the festival olympus in the media landscape this year.

This year´s media interest clearly shows, as well as in the years before, that the festival and the village of Wacken have become a popular topic for reports, newspaper articles and documentations.

The highlight of the year in the metal scene was already an important issue even prior to the W:O:A 2008. The immense presence of the Wacken Open Air certainly derived from the early sellout and the engagement of the metal legends Iron Maiden as a headliner.

2500 journalists from all over the world were accredited and gathered on the festival grounds and in the press area. The German TV stations ZDF and DMAX already broadcasted documentations about the festival before its start. Furthermore, the ZDF has broadcasted two extended reports on Wacken 2008 on August 7th at 21:00 (CET), which was seen by 3.4 million people (market share 11.2 %) and on August 10th at 18:30 (CET), which was seen by 3 million people (market share 13.4 %).

The big private TV stations RTL, N-TV, N24 and SAT1 also reported from the W:O:A.

Even the public stations NDR and WDR did not miss the chance to broadcast features about Wacken. ZDF mentioned it on an hourly basis in its daily program (Morgenmagazin, Mittagsmagazin, Drehscheibe and Heute) and ARD reported in the Tagesschau and other magazines.

Who would have thought 19 years ago that one day Thomas Jensen, who is one of the Wacken founders, would give interviews for the newspaper “FAZ” , for example, or that almost every big German station and newspaper would report about the festival in such a positive way and publish special features?

The organisers are surely glad that every report creates the same image: The Wacken Open Air is well organised and takes place in a completely peaceful atmosphere. The villagers have not just accepted the metalheads but also made themselves an inherent part of the festival.

The Wacken feeling was conveyed excellently and was in no way distorted.

The organisatorial improvements were praised as well. The new traffic system which helped avoiding traffic jams and the new concept of the video walls on the festival grounds earned a lot of commendation. Especially during the concert of Iron Maiden the organisers gave every fan the opportunity to see their metal heros live.

The W:O:A can certainly be proud of this tremendous media feedback.

And now, right after the festival and after the reports on camping metalheads, on the unique festival mood, on the bands and of course on the village of Wacken, the festival management can look forward to the next positive headlines: The limited Wacken X-Mas packages were sold out completely in just 24 hours!

The “Wacken Foundation” which was created right in time for the Open Air gained a lot of popularity in the metal family. Thus 30,000 € were collected right after the festival.

The “Wacken Foundation” is a non-commercial foundation for the sponsoring of the new blood in rock and metal music and for the aid of fans and musicians in distress.

Another big success was achieved by the rockalarm-community.

Due to the live-stream of the Wacken Open Air, which was realised by the ticketing market leader CTS Eventim and Tempodome.com, the website had over 65,000 visitors and 5,200 new registrations.

The stream had no technical problems and was used extensively by the visitors of the website. On Wednesday, the first day of the festival, the stream could be received for free.

The Wackenradio was another successful premiere. The VHF radio program provided a large variety of metal and rock music as well as traffic, security and program information, artist portraits and interviews around the W:O:A.

Below please find a link collection to national and international newspaper articles, documentaries and photo galleries on the biggest heavy metal festival of the world.

National documentaries:

ZDF: In the mediathek on www.zdf.de you can find some Wacken reports

N-TV: www.n-tv.de/1003306.html www.n-tv.de/1003528.html

Journal reporter on youtube.com: www.youtube.com/watch

RTL Explosiv: www.youtube.com/watch

N24 online: www.n24.de/news/newsitem_1201370.html

National articles:

Bild:

www.bild.de/BILD/hamburg/leute/2008/08/01/wacken-open-air/rosamunde-bei-den-hardrockern.html

www.bild.de/BILD/unterhaltung/musik/2008/08/02/wacken/wacken-festival.html

www.bild.de/BILD/hamburg/leute/2008/07/31/der-wahnsinn-kommt-nach-wacken/das-groesste-heavy-metal-spektakel-der-welt.html

NDR: