Ragnarök Festival
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| Ragnarök Festival | |
|---|---|
| Location(s) | Lichtenfels, Bavaria, Germany |
| Years active | 2004 – present |
| Founded by | |
| Date(s) | March/April |
| Genre(s) | Viking Metal, Pagan Metal, Black Metal |
| Website | www.ragnaroek-festival.com |
Ragnarök Festival is a pagan metal festival held annually in Germany since 2004 founded by Ivo Raab. It started out as a small one evening festival with only regional bands in the town hall of Hollfeld. In 2005 it was decided to go for a festival featuring mostly viking and pagan metal with the booking of bands like Månegarm, Menhir, Eisregen and Equilibrium. In 2006 the festival into the significantly bigger town hall of Lichtenfels, Bavaria. The 2007 edition again took place in Lichtenfels on March 30 and March 31.
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[edit] History
The Ragnarök Metal Festival was founded by Ivo Raab in 2004. On its debut were seven mostly Death Metal and about 120 visitors. It didn't pay off, but Raab decided to give it another try and organized it again in 2005. This year the line-up was specialized on viking and pagan metal and better known bands were casted. Especially Eisregen attracted a lot of people, because their rare live gigs are usually censored but on Ragnarök they would play censored songs. To make this possible, all visitors under the age of 18 had to leave the hall before the gig. To enforce this, under aged visitors were marked with different colored ribbons, making it easy for security to remove them after midnight.
The 2005 festival was also special because of the massive police presence. An anti-fascist union thought that the Ragnarök would be a fascistic festival due to the name token from Germanic mythology and informed the police. As a matter of fact several hundred policemen were in the town what made the visitors feel quite uncomfortable. Another incident was when the town officials and the police told that only 600 people would be allowed in the hall because of security reasons. The hall's tendent has spoken of 3000 and Raab had to negotiate a lot to get the permission to let 1200 inside the hall.
With the hall now being way too small the festival moved in 2006 to the town-hall of Lichtenfels with the capacity of 3500 people. This year it was held over two days for the first time. Because of the festival being held in April, the organization arranged a sleeping hall, where visitor could rent a place to sleep. With 2800 visitors from all over Europe and even the US and Brazil it was quite a success.
Short after the Ragnarök a TV-reportage was shown in the German public television that tried to connect the festival to the national- socialistic and fascistic scene. Hundreds of fans protested against this reportage and the festival publicized several statements, in which it distances itself explicitly from fascism.
In 2007 about 3200 people visited the festival. A lottery was held which benefits victims of facsist violence what collected about 1500€, a rather low amount considering the amount of visitors. Shirts and insignia of fascism and fascist bands were banned from the festival. With this enforcements and the anti-fascist mind of most visitors no incidents happened.
[edit] Lineups
[edit] 2009
Confirmed so far: Alestorm, Arkona, Heidevolk, Melechesh, Midnattsol, Týr
[edit] 2008
Agalloch, Alestorm, Arkona, Haggard, Hellsaw, Killing Spree, Menhir, Negură Bunget, Sear Bliss, Svartsot, Sworn, Trimonium, Unleashed, Winterdome
[edit] 2007
Aaskereia, Angantyr, Black Messiah, Cruachan, Eluveitie, Fjoergyn, Gernotshagen, Heidevolk, Hel, Helfahrt, Helheim, Kampfar, Koldbrann, Kromlek, Månegarm, Minas Morgul, Moonsorrow, Pagan Reign, Riger, Sycronomica, Týr, Urgehal, Vreid, Wolfchant, Taake (cancelled due to swastika scandal)
[edit] 2006
Creature, Equilibrium, Fallen Yggdrasil, Gernotshagen, Helheim, Korpiklaani, Menhir, Moonsorrow, Nomans Land, Odroerir, Orlog, Primordial, Riger, Skyforger, Thrudvangar, Turisas, XIV Dark Centuries, Varg, Black Messiah (cancelled due to curfew), Sycronomica (cancelled due to illness)
[edit] 2005
Circle of Obscurity, Conspiracy, Eisregen, Equilibrium, Helangår, Månegarm, Menhir, Mortal Intention, Thirdmoon, XIV Dark Centuries
[edit] 2004
Circle of Obscurity, Daemonilatria, Defection, Killing Spree, Obstinacy, Possession, Voodoma
