Page 56 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2015

Germany’s

Biggest

Festival is Free

The Bluesfest Eutin/BluesBaltica has always been free
Photo by Helge Nickel
By Helge nickel
From the small beginning of 1,500 concert-goers in 1990, In 2015 the Bluesfest Eutin/BluesBaltica was awarded the
the Bluesfest Eutin/Blues Baltica festival grew to become the great honor of a Keeping the Blues Alive award, International
biggest blues festival in Germany with more than 15,000 Festival by The Blues Foundation. For more information, visit
visitors. www.bluesfest-eutin.de
The festival is held every year for four days during the third
weekend in May in the market square of Eutin in northern Promoter Helge Nickel, also known as Kreative+Kronkretm,
Germany. Additional parts of the festival are the night founded the Bluesfest Eutin/Blues Baltica in 1990. The Bluesfest
sessions (three days), an exhibition with blues photos from Eutin/Blues Baltica is The Blues Foundation’s 2015 recipient of
international photographers, and several club events and the Keeping the Blues Alive award for International Festival.
This year’s festival is May 14-17.
concerts at different locations.
But the heart of the festival is the wonderful atmosphere of
the old market square with a big open-air stage, surrounded
with local restaurants and coffee shops. This outstanding
location, along with great musicians and a big and peaceful
crowd, provides a unique blues experience.
The Bluesfest Eutin/BluesBaltica is well known as an
international-oriented festival, which means the festival offers
more first-class acts from other countries than most of the other
festivals in Europe. For the first time in 2012, it featured acts
from each continent. The festival has also presented American
blues musicians such as Bryan Lee, James Harman, Diunna
Greenleaf, Marquise Knox, Reba Russell, Zakiya Hooker,
Moreland and Arbuckle and Lurrie Bell.
All activities around the Bluesfest Eutin are free of charge,
made possible by a long list of generous sponsors and donors.
To creatively help finance this free festival, local teenage girls
walk through the crowd each day asking for donations. For
one euro you get a colored sticker, and for a larger donation Helge and Barbara Nickel hold the Keeping the Blues Alive award
you get a free CD. By the end of the four days, most every for International Festival during January’s ceremony in Memphis
attendee is wearing multiple donation stickers. Photo by Tim Parsons

54 Blues Festival Guide 2015