GTI meeting
The GTI meeting is one of the world's largest VW meetings. It takes place since 1982 for four days (starting from the Wednesday before Ascension Day until the following Saturday) in Austria Reifnitz am Wörthersee instead. The event now has up to 200,000 visitors. The VW Group is the official sponsor. For the region, the GTI meeting is an important factor in tourism. Over the years it has developed a strong momentum and a pronounced folk festival character.
history
The GTI meeting was launched in 1982 by Erwin Neuwirth with less than 100 participants. At that time Neuwirth was running a gastronomic business in Reifnitz and with his initiative he had above all in mind the stimulation of the tourist pre-season. The organizer was - and is to this day - the municipality of Reifnitz / Maria Wörth, then under the leadership of Mayor Nikolaus Lanner. In 1983 the automobile designer Ernst Fiala could be won as a speaker. Other well-known personalities followed, for example Niki Lauda in 1985 .
From 1985 on, Ulli Brungs took over the organization at the Wörthersee until 2006.
In 1987, Reifnitz received a monument with the Granite GTI . For this purpose, a rock was imported from southern Sweden from which young stonemason apprentices in Wolfsburg chiseled a Golf GTI on a 1: 1 scale . The 25-ton object was then brought to Reifnitz in a special transport. The official handover by VW took place through the then chairman of the board, Carl Hahn .
However, the event quickly grew beyond what the small community of Reifnitz could bear. At the beginning of the 90s there were various riots, especially among young GTI fans. The main consequence was property damage. Politics and business, but also the Volkswagen factory, which initially strongly supported the GTI meeting , feared a loss of image. As a result, the meeting was canceled three times. The GTI friends came anyway and now celebrated particularly exuberantly. In 1996, a different strategy was considered - inevitably - and from now on the official GTI meeting was held again . Various attempts over the decades to calm the situation down again and again by renaming the event first to the season opening and then to Auto News (current official name) failed. In popular parlance, it stayed at the GTI meeting .
In the beginning it was only a matter of good manners to attend the event in a Golf GTI, but this has changed over the years: the Volksfest has developed into a real Volkswagen festival. Tuning and classic car fans came to Reifnitz with almost all types of vehicles that had ever been produced under the corporate flag.
The VW Group as a sponsor
This development also prompted the Volkswagen Group to get involved again from 2006. In 2006 Ferdinand Piëch and Martin Winterkorn also took part for the first time. From now on, a million budget was made available every year for the construction of a huge event stage and for exhibition space. Here musical highlights and current vehicle models were presented. In 2008 z. B. Die fantastischen Vier live in Reifnitz, 2009 DJ Ötzi , 2010 Peter Maffay performed . In 2009, in order to make space for the exhibitors and their equipment, Volkswagen bought the Hotel Marietta and had it torn down; In 2011 VW installed a floating island with a restaurant in the lake, which also served as a presentation area for the new Beetle .
For many of the fans, however, the official part of the event is less interesting today. They drive to the Wörthersee and Faaker See two weeks before the event opens and celebrate among their own kind, so that tourism can benefit from the onslaught of fans for up to 21 days. Fans meet a second time in September at the Faaker See and Wörthersee at the end of the season of the annual car meeting.
The organizing community
Up to and including 1997, Nikolaus Lanner was responsible for the region's annual meetings. In 1998 Adolf Stark was elected head of the community, who still holds this office today. At the end of 2011 he announced that he would no longer hold the GTI meeting in the future. The organization should be outsourced to an agency. After an unsuccessful tender and turbulent community meetings, the meetings will continue to be organized by the community until further notice. In mid-December 2018, it was decided at the municipal council meeting that the future meetings would be organized by an agency, the municipality pays € 60,000 for this.
criticism
Even if the meeting has become a permanent fixture in the region’s tourism, it is controversial. The event still pushes the Wörthersee region to its logistical limits. On the one hand, this is largely due to the geographical conditions: There are only three roads that lead into the town on the lake, the access and exit road is located directly on the shore, which makes it difficult. As a result, measured against the total number of visitors, only a limited number of cars can enter the place. This is now limited to 5000 pieces per event. There is a limit on tickets (a gift is included: for the 30th anniversary in 2011 the fans received a book on the history of the GTI meeting, written by journalist Helmut Horn , with a foreword by Ferdinand Piëch), which were bought in advance and sent to the three Roadblocks must be shown. An unlimited number of visitors on foot may visit the event, but have been asked to pay for the event for several years now.
On the other hand, between 150,000 and 200,000 celebrating visitors bring noise and mountains of rubbish with them. The city cleaning service is active every night and carries out extensive clean-up work. This means a high logistical and organizational effort.
Weeks before, but also after the event, residents and spa guests are disturbed by noise and unrest when the stage and exhibition areas are being set up and dismantled.
Critics from Reifnitz and the neighboring communities fear that these events will keep spa guests and tourists away, who visit the Wörthersee for relaxation and recreation.
The Ombudsman's Office criticized in a statement in November 2016, the unreasonable burdens of the locals and the guests off resident of GTI meeting by the advantages and Nachtreffen which stretch the event of a total duration of up to five weeks, numerous violations of the highway code (wheels let go of the car, car racing, impermissible engine and exhaust noise, willful, "deafening" misfires), as well as insufficient intervention by the police and law enforcement officers. The Ombudsman's Office rejected the reason given by the Carinthian State Police Directorate that it could not pursue all the reports due to a lack of staff, and insisted on compliance with the statutory provisions.
Events
- 1st GTI meeting: 1. – 13. June 1982
- 2nd GTI meeting: 2nd – 5th June 1983
- 3rd GTI meeting: May 30–3. June 1984
- 4th GTI meeting: 5. – 9. June 1985
- 5th GTI meeting: May 28–1. June 1986
- 6th GTI meeting: 27. – 31. May 1987
- 7th GTI meeting: 1st – 5th June 1988
- 8th GTI meeting: 24.-28. May 1989
- 9th GTI meeting: 23–26 May 1990
- 10th GTI meeting: 8-12 May 1991
- 11th GTI meeting: 27. – 30. May 1992 (official: season opening)
- 12th GTI meeting: 19. – 22. May 1993 (officially canceled)
- 13th GTI meeting: 11. – 14. May 1994 (officially canceled)
- 14th GTI meeting: 24.-27. May 1995 (officially canceled)
- 15th GTI meeting: 15.-18. May 1996
- 16th GTI meeting: 7. – 10. May 1997
- 17th GTI meeting: 20. – 23. May 1998
- 18th GTI meeting: 12. – 15. May 1999
- 19th GTI meeting: May 31–3. June 2000
- 20th GTI meeting: 23. – 26. May 2001
- 21st GTI meeting: 8. – 11. May 2002
- 22nd GTI meeting: 28–31 May 2003
- 23rd GTI meeting: 19. – 22. May 2004
- 24th GTI meeting: 4th – 7th May 2005
- 25th GTI meeting: 23–26 May 2006
- 26th GTI meeting: 16. – 19. May 2007
- 27th GTI meeting: 21.-24. May 2008
- 28th GTI meeting: 20. – 23. May 2009
- 29th GTI meeting: 12. – 15. May 2010
- 30th GTI meeting: 1. – 4. June 2011
- 31st GTI meeting: 16. – 19. May 2012
- 32nd GTI meeting: 8. – 11. May 2013
- 33rd GTI meeting: 28–31 May 2014
- 34th GTI meeting: 13. – 16. May 2015
- 35th GTI meeting: 4-7. May 2016
- 36th GTI meeting: 24.-27. May 2017
- 37th GTI meeting: 9. – 12. May 2018
- 38th GTI meeting: May 29–2. June 2019
- 39th GTI meeting: 20. – 23. May 2020 (officially canceled)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horn speaks of around 130,000 visitors in his book "The GTI-Treffen in Reifnitz / Maria Wörth" (p. 15), the "Kleine Zeitung" from 150,000 to 200,000, the Kronen Zeitung also from 200,000. (online: http://www.kleinezeitung.at/allgemein/automotor/gti/2758867/150-000-feierten-30-gti-party.story , http://www.krone.at/Nachrichten/Das_GTI-Treffen_in_Zahlen_und_Bildern -Volks-Ferraris-Story-69175 )
- ↑ This information also varies: Horn assumes 72 vehicles and 130 participants (p. 28), the Kronen Zeitung in its article "The history of the GTI meeting on Lake Wörthersee" from May 15, 2011 from 85 participants (online: Archivlink ( Memento from May 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ))
- ↑ Article: Kleine Zeitung "VW promises:" GTI meeting will definitely take place in 2012 " ( Memento from September 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Article: Small newspaper "VW buys in Reifnitz" ( Memento from April 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ GTI meeting 2015: Mega rush to the pre-meeting . May 4, 2015 ( oe24.at [accessed May 4, 2018]).
- ↑ GTI fans move to Faaker See . April 22, 2016 ( orf.at [accessed May 4, 2018]).
- ^ The meeting after the GTI meeting . In: www.kleinezeitung.at . ( kleinezeitung.at [accessed on May 4, 2018]).
- ↑ Article: Small newspaper "Reifnitz is looking for GTI organizers" ( Memento from April 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Article: Kleine Zeitung "GTI-Treffen: Strong Stay Organizer" ( Memento from January 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Maria Wörth municipality gives GTI meeting on ORF-Kärnten from December 14, 2018, accessed on December 14, 2018
- ^ State of emergency at the Carinthian GTI meeting. Retrieved August 11, 2019 .
- ↑ Official cancellation of GTI Meetings 2020. Accessed March 30, 2020 .