European summer lounge

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
European Summer Lounge Pforzheim 2012

The European Summer Lounge is the world's first sofa festival . It is now held every two years, attracts up to 20,000 visitors and is also known as the Maria Mollergren Memorial Festival . The international festival always takes place on the second weekend in July in the palace gardens of the city of Pforzheim. The European Summer Lounge is non-profit and can be visited by everyone without admission.

The first summer lounge took place in 2007. In 2012 the 5th European Summer Lounge took place. Over four days, the festival offers a comprehensive cultural program of poetry slams , theater performances, numerous bands and music performances, short films from the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy and a final comedy competition. The real highlight, however, are the numerous old sofas that characterize the festival and give it its own charm. Hundreds of these are distributed throughout the entire castle park during the event, making the festival unique worldwide. Another highlight is the midnight surprise program in the adjacent historic castle church .

History / origin

European Summer Lounge Pforzheim 2012

The festival began with a sofa in Stuttgart, which was moved from a ground floor apartment to Mozartplatz to make music by members of the European Circle of Friends and led to participation in Stuttgart's popular Heusteigviertel. In 2007, the European Summer Lounge was officially launched in Pforzheim in the Schlosspark and immediately enjoyed great popularity. An attempt by the neighboring pastor and the local administration to ban the event after the 2nd European Summer Lounge for 2009 led to major protests among the population. The European Summer Lounge was then held in 2009 and 2010 (for the first time with the “White Night in the Black Forest”) with a very positive response. In 2011 there was another attempt to hinder the event by the municipal administration, which resulted in a cancellation by the organizers. Once again the resentment in the population was considerable. This led to a U-turn of the city administration under the now new Lord Mayor Gert Hager, which was welcomed positively by the organizers. The European Summer Lounge then took place again in 2012 and should have finally prevailed. The European Summer Lounge is now considered to be the unofficial city festival of the city of Pforzheim and is also used as a positive milestone in the city's official advertising. Even after personnel changes on the church side, the historic castle church is now officially included in the program.

The organizers

European Summer Lounge Pforzheim 2012

The European Summer Lounge is organized and initiated by the Europäische Freundeskreis eV under the leadership of Board members Mark Gössel, Giuseppe Schembri and Andreas Janda. The European Circle of Friends is a non-profit association that is committed to international understanding and also sees itself as an international network and cultural platform.

Previous program highlights

European Summer Lounge Pforzheim 2012

The program of the European Summer Lounge is broad. Some of the highlights of the festival so far have been: Ezio , Sharon Brauner , annual short films by the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy , Direc-T Istanbul, a short performance by the Wellington International Orchestra 2012 and the White Night in the Black Forest .

Previous patrons

The European Summer Lounge enjoys broad and non-partisan political support. Three Prime Ministers of Baden-Württemberg were already patrons of the event. These are the Prime Ministers Winfried Kretschmann (Greens), Stefan Mappus (CDU) and Günther Oettinger (CDU). Other patrons are the mayor of the city of Pforzheim Gert Hager (SPD), the chairman of the European committee of the Bundestag Gunter Krichbaum (CDU) as well as the Bundestag members Katja Mast (SPD) and Memet Kılıç (Greens).

In addition, the cultural commissioner of the European Parliament Doris Pack (CDU), one of the highest-ranking German officials at the European Commission Dr. Gerhard Sabathil and the deputy chairwoman of the sports and culture committee of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament Viktoria Schmid (CDU) as the official patrons of the European summer lounge.

Web links