DEAG expects record summer of visitors across festival portfolio

DEAG Deutsche Entertainment AG is expected to welcome a record number of visitors across its festival portfolio this summer. 

The live entertainment company will draw a record attendance of over 800,000 visitors across its four strongest markets in Germany, the UK, Ireland and Switzerland – a 40% increase on 2022.

Most recently, the 20th anniversary of electronic dance festival ‘Airbeat One’ attracted 70,000 guests, who enjoyed performances from DJs such as Charlotte de Witte, Hardwell, Steve Aoki and more.

Last weekend also saw ‘Ruhr-in-Love’ in Oberhausen and ‘Sion sous les étoiles’ festival in Switzerland bring in tens of thousands of visitors. ‘Sion sous les étoiles’ attracted a new audience record of almost 60,000 guests.

‘Picnic Concerts’ at ‘Kew the Music’ welcomed performances from Bastille and Jools Holland at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew near London. The weekend prior also saw The Lumineers, Rod Stewart, The Who and Demot Kennedy perform at the ‘Castle Concerts’ on the castle stage in Edinburgh, with more than 50,000 attending six sold-out shows.

Prof. Peter Schwenkow, chief executive of DEAG, said: “DEAG’s festival segment is showing fantastic growth across all genres of music in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Switzerland. The outstanding response from audiences points the way for us to new formats, new locations and a gratifying further development of this extremely interesting music festival field.”

Elsewhere, ‘Nature One @ Rave the Planet’ and the ‘Kessel Festival’ in Stuttgart at the end of June welcomed 65,000 music fans, with the sold-out ‘Legends at the Sea’ in Büsum also adding to DEAG’s successful summer.

‘Let’s Rock’ in the UK, a festival that attracts roughly 100,000 eighties music fans to 10 locations across the season, along with ‘Sylt Open Air 2023’ at the end of July, ‘Summer Nights’ in Glasgow, ‘Wider Than Pictures Series’ in Dublin, and ‘Nature One’ at the start of August with over 70,000 fans expected, also added to the 800,000 predicted figure.

‘Indian Spirit’ in Eldena as well as ‘PennFest’ in Buckinghamshire and ‘Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival’ in Scotland at the end of July will further boost DEAG’s summer.

For the first time, roughly 75% of the tickets for DEAG’s events were sold, some exclusively through the company’s own online ticket distributors, myticket, gigantic and tickets.ie.