In the early noughties, Olli Hartl didn't move to Wacken for a long time.

"Everyone said back then that it was wet, dirty and muddy," he says of the "Wacken Open Air".

He has been working for the security company since 2000, which also gets the order for the festival every year.

In 2005, however, his curiosity won.

"I said I don't care what the others say, I'll see for myself now." Hartl pauses as if it's clear what's coming.

"And then it got to me."

Kim Maurus

volunteer.

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The forty-two-year-old has worked there every year since then as a metal guard, as the security guards at the festival call it.

Until the pandemic also erased the world's largest heavy metal festival from the calendar in 2020 and 2021.

Now it's happening again after three years.

But while tens of thousands of visitors gather in the Schleswig-Holstein community next weekend, Olli Hartl will only be able to watch from the hospital.

Shortly after Easter, the security guard was diagnosed with leukemia.

You can hear his bewilderment

Hartl struggles for words when he talks about it.

"It was hard to be torn from life like that," says Olli Hartl.

"It was heavy, to stay in metal." He survived the first chemotherapy well, he's just recovering from the second.

Going outside is currently out of the question for him, he doesn't want to subject his immune system to it.

"You hear about the disease, you read about it in the newspaper," he says.

"But you don't bother with it.

Nobody thinks that you can get it yourself.” You can hear his bewilderment.

But when Hartl talks about Wacken, his tone changes.

“So many people in a small space celebrating peacefully.

It still fascinates me," he says.

Another special thing about Wacken is that people came from all over the world.

In Wacken, Hartl was on the Louder Stage, one of the main stages, most recently as head of operations.

He helped fans get safely lowered when they crowdsurfed to the front of the stage.

He picked those who got too warm out of the crowd in good time.

And he prevented anyone from jumping onto the stage.

Before his diagnosis, Hartl, who lives in Geinsheim am Rhein, also worked for the road maintenance department in Groß-Gerau in Hesse.

Now there is nothing he can do but wait.

He is urgently looking for a stem cell donor - and hopes that more and more people will register with the DKMS.

"It doesn't cost anything, it doesn't hurt," he says.

His friends and family try to let him participate in Wacken at least a little bit.

Visitors can share photos and videos from the festival on the “Olli needs you” Facebook page.

And he's already thinking about next year.

"If everything works out, then yes, definitely: Then I'll be back," says Hartl.