BScene

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The BScene is a two-day music festival that has been held annually in Basel , Switzerland since 1997 . It is organized by a voluntary board of directors and focuses on the one hand on offering local bands a platform, but on the other hand also networking them nationally and internationally and thus promoting the music scene.

origin

The association "BScene - Das Basler Clubfestival", which organizes the festival, emerged from the environment of the Rock Funding Association of the Basel Region (since 2012: RFV Basel - Pop Funding and Music Network of the Basel Region) and was founded on April 2, 1996 as a non-profit association.

The aim of the association was to create more stages and thus a platform for the many local bands who had hardly any performance opportunities. Initially, a festival was created under the name of “Songtage der Region Basel” to pursue this goal and thus promote the music scene in the city of Basel, the surrounding communities and the Dreiländereck region (Switzerland-Germany-France).

With bands and individual artists such as Lovebugs , Kalles Kaviar , GurD , Black Tiger , Brandhärd , Navel , The Scrucialists , The bianca Story , Whysome , Undergod and Mañana , this music scene has also produced bands of national and international importance.

So it was possible with a single ticket to visit various clubs in the city for two evenings and to listen to a variety of top-class bands. The "BScene - Das Basler Clubfestival" was born.

development

Over 500 bands have played at the BScene since 1997. Until 2005, the festival alternated between large and small editions. Since the anniversary year 2006 there has been a big edition in up to thirteen clubs each year, some of which also offered several stages.

While the focus of the festival program is still on local bands, more and more selective international acts have been booked over time, on the one hand to make the festival program more attractive and on the other hand to increase the networking and exchange opportunities for musicians at the BScene do.

A record number of visitors was set in 2008: with around 7,000 visitors, the BScene was one of the largest club festivals in Switzerland. This was even exceeded in the anniversary year 2016.

Changes in the music scene

In the years that followed, the success of the anniversary in 2016 could not be repeated.

Although the festival had a good reputation and a large number of bands applied for a slot every year, which spoke for the importance and relevance of the festival, the number of visitors fell in the second half of the 10s.

The BScene was not the only organizer who had to struggle in these years, because it seemed as if the whole music scene in and around Basel had changed. So suddenly there were too many bands and too many stages for too little audience. The much discussed free culture in Basel could also have been a reason for the serious change in the music scene.

Reorientation

In January 2020 the BScene communicated a new concept to face these new challenges in the scene.

For the 24th edition, the BScene was completely limited to the barracks area in Basel, but expanded there with additional locations. With "BScene compact" and all locations within a few meters, the aim is to better distribute the existing audience among the bands, as more bands can be visited per evening. In addition, a festival center could be created that made the atmosphere and flair of the festival even more distinct from an "ordinary concert evening".

Because what was actually always a major goal of the BScene - networking within the music scene and region - could often not be optimally implemented due to the clubs, some of which were far away. For "BScene compact" this aspect was taken up again and strongly promoted, with additional offers for music makers, a targeted platform for exchange and through joint projects with partners.

So the name was adapted to «Das Basler Musikfestival», on the one hand to make the new concept stand out, but on the other hand to avoid misunderstandings, since many viewers no longer understand the term "club" to be a classic concert venue with live music, but rather a party location with DJ's playing electronic music.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dossier - BScene. In: Basler Zeitung . Retrieved January 30, 2020 (Swiss Standard German).