Recommendations of the Editorial team
90,000 people crowded around the sold-out Rock am Ring festival site on Friday evening (June 5th). And the visitors felt this particularly at the Friday headliner Linkin Park. A majority of the visitors didn’t want to miss the show, but also wanted to see Limp Bizkit on the Mandora Stage opposite afterwards. The result: After the last notes, the crowd started moving – if they were making progress.
Rock am Ring visitors describe their experiences
In advance, Limp Bizkit’s playing time was postponed to one o’clock – so the audience had at least half an hour to switch from Utopia to Mandora. As can be read in Rock am Ring groups on Facebook, many who had the foresight to leave Linkin Park a little earlier managed to do this without any problems. Even those who had made do with a seat at the back told ROLLING STONE that they were able to easily find themselves in front of the Mandora Stage. They therefore missed what other festival visitors described and criticized afterwards. Those who were at the forefront of Linkin Park reported that there were sometimes difficult situations in which nothing could be moved forward or back.
A Facebook user writes: “Yesterday there was an absolute blockage of an escape route to Linkin Park. Some wanted to go from Linkin Park to the stage looking left from A, B and C to Limp Bizkit, others wanted to go to their parking and campsites in the direction of Mühlenbachschleife. A separate route would be necessary here so that it at least flows.”
A Facebook user mentions another important point when it’s difficult to access toilets at open-air events: “The consequence is that women often drink little or nothing. Then there’s the problem of overcrowding, pushing around, crampedness – and there’s a fainting or a tendency to panic.”
Follow security instructions
However, users with the following experience also object: “Route guidance or not. We had no problems. We stood at LP in B on the side of the pit building. Went through the building after the concert. There were stewards there who clearly signaled with hand signals that you should use the stairs to get to the start and finish line. This was ignored by many visitors. Later they also clearly separated the paths to Orbit and Mandora. Everything went great there. Of course not everything goes perfectly, but many visitors ignore it too many hints, then it can’t work.”
Was the crowd too big?
ROLLING STONE is on site and got an idea of the situation on Friday. It is positive that security is using tape at several strategic points to direct the flow of visitors. With around 90,000 guests, patience is still required on the central routes: things often move slowly between concerts, and in some places people are crowded together and move along in small steps. Necessary routes to toilets or food stalls should be carefully planned.
It was foreseeable that there would be a lot of visitors at the same time between Linkin Park on the Utopia Stage and Limp Bizkit on the Mandora Stage. The extended break for renovations smoothed out the change, but it couldn’t completely break up the rush. An even later start time for Limp Bizkit could possibly have eased the situation further.
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Why does Campino think that sometimes it’s good to just keep your mouth shut? Why does he sometimes feel like a drinks delivery person? He provides the answer in our cover story about the Toten Hosen’s big farewell, exclusively in issue 06/26. And that’s not all: the magazine includes the world exclusive 7-inch single “Always just loved” – on which Sven Regener from Element of Crime also contributed. You can easily order the ROLLING STONE edition here.