The hopes were high when the event industry got back on track in the summer after the long forced Corona break.

After the grueling months of the pandemic, wouldn't the Germans be greedy for culture and concert halls, for philharmonic and cabaret, for heavy metal concerts and chamber orchestras?

Summer has gone, autumn has come - and with it the disillusionment for the concert organizers between Hamburg and Stuttgart.

Because it is now clear: The Germans could go to the concert again at the moment, but very many do not want to.

Marcus Theurer

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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All over the country, concert organizers report sluggish ticket sales, empty halls and events that had to be canceled due to a lack of demand. For a planned classical concert by a renowned orchestra in the Stuttgart Liederhalle, for example, only around 50 tickets were recently sold, reports an industry expert. In the Frankfurt Opera, many seats remain unoccupied, even at premieres. “Even big names don't pull,” complains the Hamburg organizer Klaus Wollny, who organizes classical concerts all over Germany. There is often a yawning emptiness in the Elbphilharmonie in the Hanseatic city. In some cases, only 15 to 20 percent of the expected ticket sales would be achieved, says Wollny. The slump in sales extends across all genres, from cabaret to rock concerts.

Winter threatens to be precarious

Jens Michow, President of the Federal Association of the Concert and Event Industry (BDKV), calls for help: “This is another setback.

The concert organizers didn't earn any money for a year and a half, and now the new beginning is much more difficult than expected. ”The hoped-for rapid recovery of the event business is no longer to be expected in the short term.

Winter threatens to be precarious for the industry again.

But why don't people go to concerts? Nobody really knows. But there are obvious assumptions: Many would still be afraid of infection and large crowds, says Michow. The mask requirement presumably also deter some music lover from attending a concert. After all, it is no pleasure to spend two hours in a concert with the mask on, no matter how good the music on offer.

The concert promoter Wollny fears that even more fundamental factors are at work: "Culturally weaned" the audience is after many months without public events, he speculates. In plain language: Germans have locked themselves up at home in their own four walls with cooking and a Netflix subscription and meanwhile don't miss going to the concert at all. The exceptions are rare. At the moment, apparently only absolute superstars can tear the Germans out of cocooning mode. According to her organizer, Helene Fischer, for example, sold around 100,000 tickets within 24 hours for a mega-concert on the grounds of Messe München - which, however, will not take place until next summer.

In view of the dreary situation, the industry lobbyist Michow appeals to politics.

"We urgently need more help," he says.

The so-called bridging aid III, which is supposed to expire at the end of the year, must be extended.

Michow considers it necessary that the aid funds continue to flow until the end of June 2022.

In addition, the industry must be given a perspective as to when the return to normality will come.

The concert organizers needed an appointment by which all corona restrictions would no longer apply.

“We need a Freedom Day,” says Michow.