Castle Lake Festival
The Schloßseefest has been organized since 1981 by the five Salem music associations, the music associations Beuren, Harmonie Lippertsreute, Mimmenhausen, Neufrach and Weildorf. It takes place on the first holiday weekend in Baden-Württemberg in the Linzgaugemeinde Salem in southern Baden around the Schlosssee . Every year tens of thousands of visitors from the entire Lake Constance region come to Salem's largest open-air event.
Emergence
In September 1980 the Salem municipal administration invited to a lake night festival at the Schloßsee in order to celebrate the completion of a newly laid out, approximately 60 hectare bathing and leisure area. On this occasion, the quarry pond in the lavishly recultivated gravel mining area was given the new name “Schloßsee” after the nearby Salem Castle (formerly Salem Monastery), and the event was dubbed the “Schloßseefest”.
Encouraged by the success of this first event, the municipal administration also organized a castle lake festival in the following years , with the five music associations of the Salem municipality being responsible for the catering and the musical framework program from 1981. In the years that followed, the Salem music clubs gradually took over tasks and responsibilities from the community, which continues to act as the organizer and coordinate the parking spaces and the fairground.
What began as a community festival soon developed into a popular major event. The reason for the growing popularity of the event lies on the one hand in the special atmosphere of the leisure area, on the other hand in an attractive supporting program, which the five Salem music associations are still responsible for designing.
Since 1999 the event has been advertised with its own logo (lettering with sun over wavy band), the mascot Sunny (sun face graphic) and the slogans “The mega garden festival in a special atmosphere” and “The mega garden festival of the Salem music clubs”.
The Salem music associations, and some other associations from the Salem community, take care of the well-being of the visitors today. For three days, visitors are offered varied entertainment, shows, fun and games, large art fireworks and lots of live music on several stages around the castle lake. Including a newcomer stage since 2009, which offers regional up-and-coming bands an attractive performance platform.
The entire Schlosssee area was extensively renovated and expanded in 2011, and redesigned into the “Schlosssee Nature Park” with play areas, toilet facilities, circular paths, benches and walkways. From 2020, there will be another redesign in connection with the "Salem's Neue Mitte" project.
Highlights
Every year on Friday evening, the bands of the Salem music associations march from different directions to the main stage and gather there to form an overall choir with around 300 musicians. After the mayor's keg tapping, the specially composed concert march “Salemonia” for the official opening of the festival, which premiered in 2008 under the baton of the composer Kurt Gäble , as well as the Badnerlied - the secret national anthem of Baden , and a homage to the margrave, will be intoned von Baden , whose family resides in the immediate vicinity in Salem Castle , which gives it its name .
The crowd puller on Saturday evening is an artificial fireworks display that is burned down from rafts over the castle lake and has developed into a firework display with musical choreography, a "sound fireworks". In this computer-aided, audio-visual pyrotechnics show, around 5000 individual effects with a total weight of around one ton are ignited. The sound fireworks are performed with annually changing themes, most recently " Following The Sun " (2006), " A Question Of Honor " (2007), " Conquest Of Paradise " (2008), " This Is The Life " (2009), and that The theme of the particularly impressive fireworks display for the 30th Schlossseefest was “ Wonderful World ” (2010). The show “ Walking in the Air ” (2011) opened with a well-known Bach cantata played on the church organ in St. Gallen , while “ Zarathustra ” (2012) began with the symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss , which was as popular as it was spectacular . The show “ Skyfall ” (2013) was both an homage and a tribute to 50 years of James Bond . The 2014 show began with the Oscar-winning film music by Vangelis for the athlete's film “ Chariots of Fire ” and was dedicated to the 2014 German soccer world champion . The 10th sound fireworks was opened with " Eye of the Tiger " (2015), the Oscar-nominated title song and super hit by the rock group Survivor from Rocky III . The following year the show was called " Shut Up + Dance " (2016) after the Walk the Moon earwig from the previous year . “ Let Me Entertain You ” (2017) by Robbie Williams (recorded exactly 20 years ago) also stood for the popular event's success motto. The tracks from Thomas J. Bergersen 's music forge “Two Steps from Hell” are often used in trailers, series and commercials, and so the final fireworks display, as well as every episode of “Planet Earth II”, ended with the epic work “ Empire of Angels "(2018).
The music for these special sound fireworks is put together individually, choreographed with effects and premiered in Salem. The topics of the gigantic pyrotechnics shows will only be announced immediately before the event.
Musical highlights were appearances by the well-known party band Allgäu Power (2011) - from the RTL series "Bauer sucht Frau" , the Dorfrocker (2013, 2016) from Lower Franconia, or the finalists from Kabel-1-TV who played live and without notes -Show 'Germany's best party band' Ois Easy (2015, 2019). The Klostertaler (2000, 2010) gave a big open-air concert for the 20th Schloßseefest, because their career began here in Salem. And when they broke up in 2010 - after 30 years of stage presence - their last open-air concert took place in Germany on the occasion of the 30th Schlossseefest. Even when the Bavarian women's band Isartaler Hexen (2012, 2014, 2018) - after almost 20 years - finally said goodbye to the stage, the "Witches" used the stage in Salem again on their big farewell tour in 2018 to meet their fans To say goodbye to Lake Constance musically.
Trivia
Time and again, most recently in 2010, hot air balloon rides were raffled among the festival visitors; the balloons then took off directly from the festival area into the evening sky. In 2010 around 2000 visitors found a shady spot under Europe's largest umbrella with an area of 700 m² at the Schloßseefest. From the 20th Schlossseefest onwards, there were 2 barrels of free beer for the first time, tapped by the mayor and head of the brewery. Then 3 barrels for the 30th Schlossseefest, whereby the third has been pierced by the pastor since then. Since 2014, children have been tapping their own keg with lemonade, until now always by a daughter of the mayor.
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 46 ′ 7.3 " N , 9 ° 17 ′ 34.5" E