Recommendations of the Editorial team
For the 10th anniversary of the Berlin Convention Festival “Pop-Kultur”, there was (as in previous years) a chic accompanying book. 160 pages, all sorts of salbing words and historical photos from better times. At that time Joe Chialo was still the responsible cultural senator. In federal politics, the green veteran sat in Claudia Roth on the handle.
Maria von der Heydt wrote the actual foreword, who took over the scepter at the Musicboard Berlin a few months after the event and thus adopted the long -serving Katja Lucker for the initiative of music. The latter institution is again responsible for the whole country and German pop exports into the world. So a lot of change from 2024 to 2025. “What a difference a year make”, is said in the English -speaking world in the modification of a song by Dinah Washington. And not just personnel.
“We have the cultural mandate that enables us to put a very dedicated focus on artistic work and the needs of the musicians. And the nice thing: Our audience visits pop culture because it finds new discoveries and artistic impulses, interdisciplinary experiments and unusual perspectives,” explains from Heydt in the ten-year script.
Between claim and reality
How crisis festival this “order” is a year later was observed over a total of six days, distributed across the city.
From “Silent Green”, a chic renovated former crematorium in the Wedding district, to the Kreuzberg ballroom and further into the weekend at the tried and tested location of Kulturbrauerei. A certain density where Industry involuntarily run into the way and get suggestions or even thread spontaneous deals. If you disregard the “Reception” of the “Silent Green”, who is in the cheerful “reception” on the Greens. The Dresden Electro-Indie formation Etna from Dresden usually rolled out its massive beats in the underground concrete hall. And was celebrated politely.
Even without statistical material, it can be stated that the international participation and importance of pop culture was not particularly high.
Berlin is an expat city by excellence, with suburban musicians from Seattle to Singapore. And the Goethe Institute also enabled bands from Georgia and other Caucasus Anrainer countries. However, the financially strong export offices seemed to prepare for the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg (17th to 20th September). In the triad C/O Pop (Cologne) and Pop culture (Berlin), the Hanseatic visitors for foreign visitors took over the function of the former Mega fair Popkomm. Which is known to be asleep from Cologne, and was finally put to sleep in Berlin in 2011. The “Berlin Music Week”, which was set up in the capital below, has also long been history.
Regional formats and club nights
The free evening in the Kreuzberg ballroom called “Pop Up_Berlin” with young bands in the hall and all kinds of freestyle communication in the foyer had a strictly regional character. Labels such as Greenland, Karaoke Kalk, BPitch Control or City Slang presented their program at wooden tables, mostly with vinyls in cardboard or plastic boxes. Cute and nice, a plate flea market of the noble variety.
The coronation fairs then on Friday and Saturday in the various clubs and halls of the former school house brewery. With “stars” like the cheerfulness, the nerves or the powerful, multinational women’s band Los Bitchos, but how it is when the offer is tightly packed, you chat somewhere. And miss the next band in the Palais or in the Frannz Club. The open-air location Caystube could often score where there were all sorts of disco, house or somehow sparking creses with queer superstructure. The norwegian-Icelandic Synth-Pop duo Ultraflex, based in Berlin, scored the bird. Conceptually lightly dressed, Kari “Farao” Jahnsen and Katrín Helga made “Special-K” Andrésdóttir great fun fair music. And asked for the Grande Finale a friendly pole dancer on the flat stage, which carried artistic exercises on the steel rod. It was great!
Political uncertainty and impending cuts
In view of the impending other budget cuts and the previous zero behavior of the new Minister of Culture Wolfram Weimer to the matters of pop music, the team around Marie von der Heydt will have to be against the much-taured “Finanzhammer”, which will continue to circle in 2026.
The Berlin Festival is largely made possible by the local Senate Department for Culture and Europe in the country. In addition, there are funds from the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE) and funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM). Overall, a fragile structure, as with other subsidized cultural institutions, which at some point no longer has sufficient substance to endure even more cuts.