Helga (call)

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Helga tombstone at a festival

The call “ Helga ! “Is a running gag at mass events (such as open-air concerts ) in German-speaking countries. A person calls out loudly for a supposed Helga . The calls are ritually answered by other people in the same way. This allows the call to be heard by more people and the ritual can build up. Since the call does not always meet with approval, it is occasionally answered with “Helga is dead!”. There are also numerous allusions to the call, for example in the form of gravestones or inscribed tents. In the summer of 2018, the Swiss singer Dodo released the single Helga , in which he addressed the phenomenon.

Emergence

How, where and when exactly the ritual originated can no longer be proven today. In a reply to an apparently false report in the taz , which postponed the Helga call to the end of the 1990s, it is alleged that the call originated in 1992 at the Bizarre Festival in the dispute over a can of ravioli . Other sources relocate the origin of the call to the Open Air St. Gallen or the Whitsun Open Air at the end of the 1980s at the Veste Oberhaus in Passau . The reason for the call is alleged that a festival visitor called the name of his girlfriend Helga. Reliable time and place information is missing.

Another false claim is that the exclamation was made in 2003 at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel . On one day of the festival it was pouring rain on the campsite, although the weather forecast for the previous days announced the high pressure area of ​​Helga. This did not happen, however, and so the ritual was introduced to shout "Helga" at every festival in the hope of good weather.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The festival on neon.de
  2. ↑ <2004-04-14> General music newsgroup FAQ on faqs.org
  3. ↑ Julia Thiel: The Festival ABC on einslive.de
  4. ↑ Dodo: Helga , Sony Music, July 5, 2018.
  5. ↑ The debate continues on taz.de.
  6. ^ Open Air St. Gallen Info ( Memento from December 17, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive
  7. ↑ Where does "Helga" come from? on groups.google.com
  8. ↑ Stefan Fößel: "Vacation from being German ( Memento from September 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on sueddeutsche.de
  9. ↑ HELGA high pressure area. Retrieved June 18, 2018 .

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