Reeperbahn Festival 2022: Betterov, Best Practices and Crisis Communication

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Musician Betterov (centre) in Hamburg's Michel with guests: between pathos of importance and mumbling about intimacy

As the applause echoes through St. Michael's Church, Manuel Bittorf looks down humbly.

"Hallelujah, as they say," says the 28-year-old, who calls himself Betterov as a musician, into the microphone.

His concert in Hamburg's most famous church, the Michel, on Friday evening is one of the special concerts labeled as work premieres that stand out from the multitude of shows at the Reeperbahn Festival.

"Betterov & Friends" means that the Berlin-based singer and songwriter will perform with strings and wind instruments, present the songs from his album "Olympia", which will be released in mid-October, and welcome a few guest singers on stage.

These greetings are extremely warm.

Whether it's the songwriters Novaa and Paula Hartmann, the Berliner by choice Fil Bo Riva or the "Hamburger Jung" Olli Schulz, who says he used to live around the corner on Martin-Luther-Strasse, but never before in the Michel sung: Betterov hugs them all and sings one of their songs and one of their own in a duet.

The Betterov songs deal a lot with worrying about oneself: "I can't do it alone," says "Take me home."

"Only when everything is dark, then I'll be there," he sings in "Fear," and when love is there, he fears: "Will you stay with me if I'm no longer working?".

They are carried by the striking voice of the native Thuringian, reminiscent of the young Morrissey, vacillating between pathos of meaning and mumbling about intimacy.

"Of all the places in the world I was born here of all places" - that's a line that is typical of his quarrel with the circumstances, with which melancholics from all places of origin can sympathize.

The Reeperbahn Festival can also claim a certain share in Betterov's rise, as the singer confessed in an announcement: The event, which describes itself as Europe's largest club festival, is considered a newcomer event.

»They say they only play once at the Reeperbahn Festival«, says Betterov, »well, this is my seventh concert here«.

He particularly emphasizes that in 2020, when all tours were canceled in autumn, the Reeperbahn Festival still took place under difficult hygiene conditions.

While the 2020 staging may have had fond memories of its perseverance, 2021 was a flop: too many people wanted to see the too few acts playing in officially restricted clubs - the result was long, and often futile, queues.

This year, on the other hand, hopping from one club to the next was possible again, which is what makes the Reeperbahn Festival so special: you set a fixed point in the evening and otherwise let yourself go, discover Australian dream music in a pub on Hans-Albers-Platz. Pop by Hatchie or in the backyard of the Molotow a Viennese electronic grantler named Salò.

Tips come from other visitors or from the festival app, in which a traffic light now shows where things could get crowded and where nothing is going on.

Most of the time something else worked.

With 40,000 visitors expected, most of them in the clubs without masks, the popularity was still below the pre-corona numbers of 2019 (52,000), but the streets of St. Pauli seemed even busier than usual. Of course, it was the busiest early Wednesday evening when the Chemnitz indie rock band Kraftklub paralyzed the Reeperbahn with a free surprise concert.

Singer Kummer spoke of a dream coming true, his star guests Casper and Bill Kaulitz also seemed impressed, and the twentysomethings on the street jumped wildly,

The festival had previously opened next door in the Operettenhaus.

Natalia Klitschko called for other cultures to be considered not only in times of crisis, as is happening in Ukraine.

British singer Ellie Goulding called for joint action to protect the climate.

And Amy Gutmann, the new US ambassador to Germany, advertised in a very American way for the German version of the musical »Hamilton«, which will premiere in Hamburg in about two weeks: her wild applause of the ensemble invited to the festival opening had a contrasting effect to her seat neighbor, Hamburg's somewhat stiff Mayor Tschentscher, particularly euphoric.

At the same time, she praised Hamilton - life story and musical - as an example of inclusion.

Ultimately: the American Dream.

Another reason why the Reeperbahn Festival is so generously funded by the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media is that, in addition to the evening concerts, it also includes a congress during the day, which is one of the most important meeting places for the music industry in the state.

There were mainly three topics discussed:

• Gender equality

  : At the congress, the Keychange initiative presented a market research study (results as PDF ) that looked at gender issues from the perspective of music users.

  It was noticeable that so far only a minority has thought about whether men and women are equally represented in music offerings.

  However, awareness is significantly higher among younger respondents.

  The issue is most strongly perceived at festivals – where an imbalance is particularly visible.

A majority of younger people can imagine making their purchasing decisions dependent on balanced offers.

A point that festival director Alexander Schulz has just recommended to streaming services.

After all, a factor such as balanced playlists can make a difference with offers that are similar in content.

The recently published study by the MaLisa Foundation was also discussed under the title "The end of the buddy business?"

"Men don't notice enough that they are among themselves," said MaLisa consultant Anna Groß.

And Francis Gay, head of music at the WDR broadcaster Cosmo, presented the gender-balanced selection of music for his program as a best practice: it was no problem at all in terms of content.

The Reeperbahn Festival has also joined the Keychange commitment - with just one woman or non-binary person on stage being enough to count towards the quota.

• Concert crisis

  : While major concerts were often able to report sold-out stadiums after the Corona failures, many club concerts remained significantly emptier than before the pandemic.

  The result: performances and entire tours were canceled because they no longer paid off.

  In addition, the clubs and even more so the festival organizers are suffering from the increased costs for the trades: security, stage construction, sound technology - specialists have reoriented themselves everywhere during lockdown times, now they are rare and correspondingly expensive.

  In the discussion rounds on the topic, 2023 was described as the year of the decision: With the end of state subsidies for corona reasons, there could be massive "market shakeouts".

  Corporations such as Live Nation or CTS Eventim are already buying up smaller companies.

  The industry's lobby organizations are pushing politicians to institutionally promote the area - it's about securing space, emphasized Hamburg's Senator for Culture, Carsten Brosda, in a conversation with the pianist Igor Levit.

  But self-criticism can also be heard from the industry: the audience has been treated too badly for too long;

  the “customer experience” could definitely be improved.

  The problem of spiraling costs has not yet been solved: Actually, the prices should be increased significantly, but even the current ones are able or unwilling to attract fewer and fewer concert-goers.

  There is the danger of a two-tier society with concerts that only »rich kids« could afford.

Between the lines it was clear again and again that the Corona years had a really hard time on the people who work in the industry.

Mental health was addressed by stakeholders at all levels, and the phrase »I have to work this out on my own« was rarely heard.

The festival offered so-called "awareness points" for guests who felt uncomfortable.

And mindfulness was also an issue on stage.

At his performance at the Mojo Club, Ferdinand Kirch, who calls himself Nand as a singer and producer, talked about the bad times when the song "Feeling Good" was written.

Maybe that could give courage and set an example.

"But don't let yourself be put under pressure now," added the 23-year-old: "You don't have to do anything creative either."

At Betterov im Michel, all the guests come back onto the stage for the final song »Dussmann«.

Together they celebrate that they have managed to wrest creativity from bad times.