Not only the ball rolls in football stadiums. The arenas are too expensive for that and not used enough by the athletes.

The Brita Arena, built in 2007 in just 112 days for the then second division promoted team SV Wehen Wiesbaden, is no exception.

The small stadium holds a good 15,000 spectators, and the operator advertises it as a versatile event location on its website: "Whether it's a summer party, open-air concert, road show or kick-off event - the Brita Arena provides the right setting for your event. Concerts for up to 12,000 spectators could take place inside the arena.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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But there is currently a hail of cancellations and concert postponements, which are causing a lot of displeasure and harsh criticism of the Wiesbaden city administration on social networks.

Finally, there were very popular "beach chair" concerts in the arena even during the pandemic times.

But that is not comparable to "normal" concerts, according to the town hall.

And in terms of building law, the arena is a sports venue and not an event venue.

If concerts are to take place there, then many bureaucratic hurdles have to be overcome.

And the demands on the organizers are significantly higher than when it comes to a recognized concert hall.

The concert series "WI love Music", a cooperation between SparkassenPark Mönchengladbach and the Rheingau Music Festival, was surprisingly hit hard.

She planned six concerts in Wiesbaden between June 9th and 25th with Sarah Connor, Fury in the Slaughterhouse, Smokie, Rea Garvey, the Crackers and Ronan Keating.

Their performances have now been moved to the Congress Center, the Festhalle Frankfurt, the Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, the Mainz Citadel and the Batschkapp Frankfurt.

The Keating concert has been cancelled.

"We very much regret that the approval situation for the concerts in the Brita Arena has changed at short notice," says the organizer: "We have to reschedule out of necessity."

"The organizer didn't do his homework"

From the city's point of view, the background is, among other things, the lack of a comprehensive and comprehensible security concept for the arena.

After the anger in the social media about the relocation of the concerts from the arena had erupted, the city went on the offensive with its view of things: the arena is a sports venue and not an event venue in terms of building law.

The organization of concerts is therefore "administratively very complex".

The organizers had "until recently no comprehensive and verifiable safety concept".

After repeated requests, security concepts were only presented on May 8, which, however, were "not verifiable".

However, all authorities tried to make the concerts possible.

Despite two coordination talks in May, "the security concept and its systems are still not consistent, sometimes even contradictory".

Documents and entire components were missing.

Courses of action were not sufficiently described, responsibilities were not clearly defined.

Experiences from the past were not taken up: "The evacuation concept was completely missing, no evacuation options were shown."

On Facebook, the head of the social affairs department Christoph Manjura (SPD) comments on this situation: “You can’t approve anything on this basis.

Unless people's safety and applicable law are a wumpe.

The organizer didn't do his homework.

Point."

Next ready for dialogue

However, the understanding of the readers is limited: "So to be on the safe side, we should be bored to death," comments one of the Manjura contribution.

And the organizer himself reacted with great pique, "decisively" rejecting the portrayal of the city.

In a statement, he regretted that "false statements had been published without approval by the city of Wiesbaden".

"So far we have deliberately not reported negatively to the city of Wiesbaden and regret that this has now happened unilaterally."

We are still ready for dialogue to discuss the future of the Brita Arena as a venue.

A refund will be offered to those who have already purchased concert tickets but are unable to attend the new venues despite unchanged dates and times.