Skyscraper Festival

Frankfurt from above: At the Skyscraper Festival 2013, visitors were able to see the city from above on one of the many viewing platforms.

Fireworks at the 2007 festival

The Skyscraper Festival is a festival that is held at irregular intervals in Frankfurt am Main . During the festivals, numerous skyscrapers and taller skyscrapers in Frankfurt are open to the public, which, with the exception of the Main Tower , they are not during the year for safety reasons. The Skyscraper Festival is a non-profit event for the city and region of Frankfurt am Main, which is financed by around 100 sponsors and partners. It is advertised in newspapers, radio, television, the Internet and social networks. It has taken place five times so far, most recently on May 25 and 26, 2013 and attracted around 1.2 million visitors. A date for the next festival has not yet been set.

procedure

The festival itself is free and free for all visitors, but guests need a ticket to enter one of the skyscrapers. The tickets are limited and are also given free of charge. If a telephone hotline was set up for this at the first festivals, since 2007 tickets have only been given over the Internet.

Many accompanying shows take place near the skyscrapers, for example base jumping , parachute jumping, bungee jumping, high wire artistry, street theater, concerts or fireworks. Fixed attractions and catering stands will also be set up.

history

The Skyscraper Festival goes back to an idea of ​​the city councilor Andreas Rust (CDU), who, together with the then mayor Petra Roth , was able to persuade the owners of the high-rise buildings to open them to the Frankfurt residents. The high-rise buildings in Frankfurt had little approval from the population because they were not freely accessible and the “high-ranking gentlemen” sealed themselves off there. Roth and Rust (then project manager at the Main Tower) initiated the "Frankfurt above - a tower exploration" campaign in autumn 1995, in which around 150 visitors to the boardrooms of five high-rise buildings for an entrance fee of six marks (approx. Three euros) in February of the following year could visit. Since around 10,000 people tried to register, the campaign was considered a complete success and thought was given to how this campaign could be repeated.

The first Skyscraper Festival took place on October 19 and 20 of the same year, in which ten high-rise buildings took part and 40,000 tickets were provided, which gave access to the upper floors. There was an open-air stage on the Opernplatz and a final fireworks display for the 100,000 visitors. Two years later - on September 5th and 6th, 1998 - the next festival was held. This time there were 70,000 tickets for twelve skyscrapers. Half a million visitors were counted on the two days.

The visitor record was also broken at the third festival on May 12 and 13, 2001: 800,000 visitors found their way to the festival, where 70,000 tickets were now available for 15 high-rise buildings. Just four months later, on September 11, 2001 , two planes flew into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. This act of terror initially meant the end of events of this kind.

Four years later it was decided that there should be another skyscraper festival. Nevertheless, it took another two years until the upper floors of the skyscrapers were reopened for 80,000 ticket holders on May 12 and 13, 2007. 15 skyscrapers and the Eschenheimer Turm , the oldest tower building in the city, took part.

In 2013, 18 houses took part, more than ever before. For example, the newly built Tower 185, the Opera Tower and the Jumeirah Frankfurt had opened their doors. The Main_Forum (IG Metall) and the Eurotheum (Innside Frankfurt) were also there for the first time. The 80,000 tickets for the skyscraper were given within just three hours.

The supporting program included open air concerts by Nena , Status Quo , Otto Waalkes , Heino , Blue , Stefanie Heinzmann , Bosse , The Baseballs , the FFH band, Szenario, the StreetLIVE Family, Bolero Berlin, Joja Wendt, the Skyline Symphony and of the New Philharmonic in Frankfurt. One of the highlights was the great skyline fireworks that were shot down from the roofs of various skyscrapers and accompanied by music. The British singer Paul Potts opened the fireworks.

The Hessian Broadcasting granted in 2013 as part of the skyscraper festival by videos and panorama shots insights into spaces that visitors on did not get to see festival day.

The festival was organized by Hit Radio FFH . It is initiated by Hit Radio FFH, the Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen , the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and in 2013 for the first time by the Frankfurter Neue Presse .

Participating high-rise buildings

The table below lists all high-rise buildings that have participated in at least one skyscraper festival or its previous event. It is listed as a participating high-rise if admission tickets have been made available to visit the upper floors.

Participation	Surname	image	Frankfurt above (1996)	1st Festival (1996)	2nd Festival (1998)	3rd Festival (2001)	4th Festival (2007)	5th Festival (2013)	Remarks
6th	Exhibition tower		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
6th	Westendstrasse 1		yes DG Bank	yes DG Bank	yes DG Bank	yes DG Bank	yes Westend 1 DZ Bank	yes Westend 1 DZ Bank
6th	Deutsche Bank skyscraper		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
5	Commerzbank Tower		-	yes (still under construction)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Can also be visited outside of the festival after registration.
5	Westend Gate		-	yes marriott hotel	yes marriott hotel	yes marriott hotel	yes plaza office center	yes Westend Gate
5	Trianon		-	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
5	Eurotower		-	Yes	yes ECB	yes ECB	yes ECB	yes ECB
4th	Main Tower		-	-	yes (still under construction)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Can also be visited outside of the festival for an entrance fee.
4th	Pollux		-	yes Forum Frankfurt	yes Forum Frankfurt	yes castor	yes Pollux	-
4th	Japan Center		-	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
3	Taunusanlage 11		-	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
3	Silver tower		-	-	yes Dresdner Bank	yes Dresdner Bank	-	yes Deutsche Bahn
3	Fair gatehouse		-	Yes	-	Yes	-	Yes
3	Frankfurt office center		-	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
2	Skyper		-	-	-	-	Yes	Yes	Completion 2004
2	Eschenheim Tower		-	-	-	-	Yes	Yes	May participate as the former tallest building in the city, but is not considered an official participant
2	Park Tower		-	-	yes SGZ bank	yes GZ Bank	-	-
2	Gallileo		-	-	-	-	yes Dresdner Bank	yes Commerzbank	Completion 2003
1	Tower 185		-	-	-	-	-	yes PWC	Completion December 2011
1	Opera tower		-	-	-	-	-	yes UBS	Completion 2010
1	Garden Tower		yes Heleba skyscraper	-	-	-	-	-
1	AfE tower		Yes	-	-	-	-	-	Building was blown up on February 2, 2014.
1	Jumeirah Frankfurt Hotel		-	-	-	-	-	Yes	Completion 2011
1	Westend Duo		-	-	-	-	Yes	-	Completion 2006
1	Eurotheum		-	-	-	-	-	Yes	Completion 1999
1	Leo		-	-	-	-	-	yes ING Diba	former Poseidon House
1	Main forum		-	-	-	-	-	yes IG Metall

1. ↑ Information currently without guarantee. Review in progress.
2. ↑ Reconstructed based on the images on the festival poster
3. ↑ Designation and spelling of the high-rise buildings according to Course pass
4. ↑ according to Course pass
5. ↑ according to Course pass

See also

• List of high-rise buildings in Frankfurt am Main

Web links

• Official website
• Skyscraper Festival in SKYLINE ATLAS - with numerous photos
• Frankfurt celebrates its skyline , report on FNP.de
• Skyscraper madness , report on BILD.de
• 99 balloons against football , report on Welt.de
• Frankfurt from above and great shows , report on fr-online.de
• Paul Potts opens the fireworks , video on RTL-Hessen.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Report in faz.net (2013)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 14, 1996, No. 38, p. 42. Accessed June 6, 2013 . 
3. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 20, 1996, No. 68, p. 46. Retrieved June 5, 2013 . 
4. ↑ Presentation by Tom Schneider, POOLgroup. Retrieved June 5, 2013 . 
5. ↑ Information via hr-online ( memento of the original from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Tickets for the 1998 Skyscraper Festival in Frankfurt / M. will be issued. Retrieved June 5, 2013 .