‘The Rudolstadt Festival is the stuff of imagination’

Former Chronicle journalist Conor Sharkey has just returned from an event in Germany and it would be fair to say he was ‘blown away’ by the experience

“But who is headlining?” A question that almost inevitably arises when you tell someone you are going to the Rudolstadt Festival.

The answer is no one. There are no headline acts. Well, not really.

Rather there are just dozens and dozens of bands, singers and individual musicians, all on an even keel, all on message with the festival’s ethos – prepare to be charmed, ready yourself for surprises and most importantly, have a good time.

Nestled away in the east German countryside, Rudolstadt is home to around 25,000 permanent residents.

Carry out a census during the annual festival – the first weekend in July – and you would add to that some 95,000 visitors.

Rudolstadt also happens to be Letterkenny’s twin town thanks to an agreement signed by local politicians on both sides in 2018.

Located in the shadow of the grand Heidecksberg Castle, it is everything you would imagine a German town to be – cobbled streets and timbered houses with A-shaped roofs. Think The Brothers Grimm or The Pied Piper and you start to get the picture.

While like most other towns in Thuringia – the state in which it is located – for that single weekend in early July Rudolstadt comes alive unlike anywhere else in Germany, Europe and possibly even the world.

The variety of the festival is almost too much to fathom.

Ahead of my trip this year I downloaded the app which is designed to help you pick the acts and events you want to attend.

I was immediately overwhelmed by…by everything. Folk jazz from Ukraine, traditional zither from Syria, Afrobeats from Senegal, ukuleles from Adelaide.

Almost 30 stages and podiums are built to accommodate the 300 odd concerts that take place, not to mention the workshops, discussions and impromptu gatherings that tend to spring up whenever an empty space shows itself.

From a Thursday to a Sunday up to 25,000 people per day descend on what is normally a fairly sleepy corner of rural Thuringia. From all over the globe, all ages and all walks of life they come to stay in campervans, tents, hotels, Airbnb. Some bring little more than a hammock to sling between trees where they can find them, confident that the weather will see them right.

Over the last couple of years the international throng has had a green tinge to it thanks to the small but growing number of Irish people making the trip. For those who do travel – and the path is not straightforward but more on that in a minute – the road will undoubtedly take them to the Letterkenny Irish Pub.

With its impressive stone vaulted ceilings which have stood for hundreds of years, the Letterkenny is the perfect venue for a session and singalong.

And so it was over the Rudolstadt Festival weekend as musicians of all hues settled in to play.

Right there among them was Errigal College music teacher Maggie McAteer. With school out for summer, Maggie decided to pack her bags and trade, temporarily at least, Donegal for Deutschland.

The gathering on the final night of the festival, which saw Maggie conduct trumpet players, saxophonists, guitarists, bodhran players and even a very talented gentleman on the spoons on what can only be described as a cultural, musical, global explosion, is something that will live long in the memory of everyone who was there to experience it.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the Rudolstadt Festival is something everyone should try to get to at least once.

There are downsides and it would be remiss not to mention them.

Rudolstadt is not easy to get to. My partner and I flew into the rather ill-named Frankfurt Hahn Airport. Ill-named as it is not in Frankfurt city, far from it. It is a two hour bus journey from Frankfurt, or €130 in an Uber as we found out.

From Frankfurt we took a train at a cost of €152 to Erfurt before catching a bus across to our final destination.

There are other ways, a flight to Berlin followed by a lengthy train journey to Rudolstadt, changing at Leipzig, probably the most straightforward.

Accommodation is also desperately hard to find. Those who go to the festival, return to the festival. So from one year to the next the hotels are booked solid. But keep an eye, something might just turn up.

Do not however let the negatives put you off.

The friendly people, the fairytale setting, the music down every street and alleyway – the Rudolstadt Festival is the stuff of imagination and you won’t come across anything like it anywhere else.

And when you are sitting outside the Letterkenny Pub sipping a pint of Radeberger in the sun, you’ll know that it was worth every minute of the epic journey.