Carnival in times of Corona: swaying is part of it

For Jörg Haft, not celebrating Shrovetide for a second year in a row is out of the question.

“That would be tough,” said the first chairman of the Fidelen Nassauer in 1931, the carnival and dance sport club Heddernheim.

Almost a month before the carnival campaign on November 11th.

begins, carnival clubs like his face major challenges.

You are in the middle of planning.

The events of the clubs often bring hundreds of people together in one hall in the spring - in times of the pandemic it is difficult to find your way back to normal.

Like many clubs all over Germany, carnival clubs also have to deal with the big Gs that are on everyone's lips. 2 G or 3 G - do the clubs only want to allow those who have recovered or have been vaccinated, or also those who have tested negative, access to their events? It was not until the end of September that the Grand Council of the Frankfurt Carnival Associations decided at a delegates' meeting that the Carnival Night could only be held under the 2-G rule. So if you have not been vaccinated or recovered, you cannot participate, regardless of whether you are a member of the association or not. "We bit into the bitter pill," says Haft.

Not an easy decision for many clubs, but you didn't really have a choice, says his colleague Thomas Schade from the Bornheim Carnival Society 1901er.

"From an economic point of view, we only have 2 G, otherwise it's not worth it," says the first chairman of the Bornheimer Verein on the phone.

With 3G, clubs would have to reduce the number of guests in their halls so much that they could no longer earn enough money to pay the artists.

Carnival lives from conviviality

With the 2-G regulation, essential corona restrictions, such as distance rules, mask requirements and capacity restrictions, which would make a relatively normal celebration possible, do not apply under the current ordinance. A carnival night with 3 G and distance just doesn't work, says Uwe Forstmann, press spokesman for the Grand Council. Carnival lives from sociability, and swaying is part of it. Constantly controlling distances is simply not possible. The Grand Council is the umbrella organization for 42 Frankfurt carnival associations. The motto of the 2021/22 campaign is emblazoned on the website: “Almost nothing is like last year, only Frankfurt's golden prince couple”. Carnival would like to be celebrated again, but clubs go into this campaign with many uncertainties.New regulations in the country are to be decided in the coming days, these must now be awaited, said Forstmann.

Forstmann and other clubs are now watching the carnivalists in Heddernheim, who will hold an internal Oktoberfest on Saturday, all the more excited.

“We also learn with every event,” says the press officer.

For the association, the festival is a certain “preliminary examination”, says the chairman of Haft, until a carnival wine festival is on the agenda in November, which will also be open to non-members.

The new event concept is being tested here.

Access is then only given to guests who have previously ordered a ticket and who were able to present their vaccination or health certificate when ordering.

It is true that this leads to a greater control effort, and the order is also a bit more complicated than usual, but health comes first, they all agree.

Unlike many Frankfurt clubs, the Heddernheimers are not dependent on Frankfurter Saalbau GmbH, which rents out the majority of Frankfurt's event rooms.

With a 2-G concept, employees must also be vaccinated or have recovered, but they are not legally obliged to notify their employer of their vaccination status.

This can lead to personnel problems for Saalbau, as it is dependent on voluntary information from its employees.

Nobody can say how the guests will react to the regulation.

In both the Bornheimer and the Heddernheimer Verein, at least the vast majority of members have been vaccinated.

There are more problems with younger members who have either not yet been vaccinated or are not yet allowed to be vaccinated.

Small clubs in particular could suffer

Jörg Haft, meanwhile, hopes that the rules of the state of Hesse will remain as relaxed as they are at the moment. But if the fourth wave should roll across the country with greater force and bring with it tougher restrictions than previously assumed, this could mean the end for some clubs, said Forstmann. Smaller clubs in particular would suffer. The first cancellations of Mardi Gras parades have already arrived, he says. However, the joy of celebrating Shrovetide again outweighs the carnivalists.

The corona crisis did not pass the clubs by either.

Friendships that arose across club boundaries have been lost, says Forstmann.

Also, many would not look at the upcoming carnival season as exuberantly as usual. “People are more cautious,” says the press spokesman, they have to get used to it again.

With the 2-G regulation, a first step towards normality is to be dared.

Forstmann hopes that Mardi Gras can be celebrated again in the next 2022/23 campaign.