Recommendations of the Editorial team
Suddenly he was standing in the crowd, in the middle of the audience, waving his fan scarf. On stage: Big Special, the great, then new hip-hop soul punk duo from England. In front of the stage: Pete Doherty, the evening’s main act in a good mood. He stood in for Bright Eyes, who had to cancel their performance at short notice due to the illness of their singer Conor Oberst. And he had a lot of fun on ROLLING STONE Beach, watching the performances of his music colleagues, always with a beer mug in his hand and a big hat on his head. The former singer of the legendary Libertines chatted with fans at the bar, had his photo taken with them, and threw a round of drinks.
And his own appearance in the large festival tent was a triumph, one of the most beautiful concerts at the anniversary beach two years ago.
There are many such stories. Our own festival, which the ROLLING STONE editorial team puts together every November with the team from concert organizer FKP Scorpio, is one of the highlights of the year. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” even called it “Germany’s most important festival”.
Almost 30 concerts over two days and in four different venues, all easily reachable within a few minutes, so you can commute from one gig to the next – from the large, warmly heated tent to the intimate wooden stage in the clubby Alm.
And if you didn’t play everything at ROLLING STONE Beach: Black Keys, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The National, Fleet Foxes, Tocotronic, Steven Wilson, St. Vincent, Blumfeld, Element Of Crime, Sleaford Mods, Julia Holter, Van Dyke Parks, Suede, Dinosaur Jr. – to name just a few. And in 2011, a still unknown red-haired songwriter played his first German concert on the tiniest of the four stages – Ed Sheeran. The rest is history.
But it’s not just the concerts and the many acts that need to be discovered (and which we put together on wish lists year after year – at the end of the booking effort, some things work out, others don’t, and Paul Weller has no time again). Putting together the line-up is both delicate and difficult work. We, the editorial team, will also talk about this together with our favorite festival organizer Stephan Thanscheidt at the RS Festival Talk. And if you have this magazine in your hand, you can already see the first confirmed acts for 2026 on rollingstone.de.
But, as I said, it’s not just the line-up. For those who have never been there: It is the unique atmosphere of ROLLING STONE Beach. Like on vacation. The sea roars next door, morning walks on the beach and nightly beach parties beckon, the infamous after-show disco (when was the last time you danced to the B-52’s?), the record and poster fair, the restaurants and bars, the swimming paradise and the bowling alley, the readings and the pop quiz. Our festival takes place in a holiday park directly on the Baltic Sea beach. It’s only a few meters from the concert to the bed in the cozy apartment. There is no festival like ours anywhere else.
ROLLING STONE Beach 2026:
November 13th to 15th at the Weissenhäuser Strand holiday park. You can book festival passes plus two nights in a 4-star beach hotel (from 403 euros) or in one of the holiday apartments (from 323 euros) as well as festival passes without overnight stay (152 euros) here: rollingstone-beach.de/tickets. ROLLING STONE subscribers pay 15 euros less. Anyone who stays overnight at the holiday park also has free entry to the swimming paradise.
