DEAG’s summer festivals to attract crowds of 800k+

DEAG is on course to attract a record number of visitors to its festivals this summer, with crowds set to soar past 800,000 across its core markets of Germany, the UK & Ireland, and Switzerland.

The company has expanded its portfolio over the past few years with acquisitions such as Regular Music, tickets.ie. platform, Indian Spirit, Classic Open Air and Airbeat One, and is anticipating a 40% year-on-year increase in visitors in 2023.

German electronic dance festival Airbeat One attracted 70,000 people to its 20th anniversary last weekend, which featured headliners such as Charlotte de Witte, Hardwell, Steve Aoki and Fritz Kalkbrenner at the airfield in Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Before that, more than 400 DJs thrilled the electronic dance fans at

Elsewhere, in Switzerland, the Sion sous les étoile festival featured artists including Soprano and Joss Stone from 12-16 July and set a new attendance record of almost 60,000 visitors.

In the UK, DEAG’s Kilimanjaro Live staged Kew the Music with the likes of Bastille and Jools Holland at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, near London. The previous weekend, stars such as The Lumineers, Rod Stewart, The Who and Dermot Kennedy drew more than 50,000 visitors to six sold-out shows at Regular Music’s Castle Concerts in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“DEAG’s festival segment is showing fantastic growth across all genres of music in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Switzerland”

“DEAG’s festival segment is showing fantastic growth across all genres of music in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Switzerland,” says DEAG CEO Peter Schwenkow. “The outstanding response from audiences points the way for us to new formats, new locations and a gratifying further development of this extremely interesting music festival field.”

Other successes included Rave the Planet and the Kessel Festival in Stuttgart at the end of June, along with the sold-out Legends at the Sea in Büsum. In addition, the UK’s biggest retro festival series Let’s Rock, attracted around 100,000 fans to 10 locations.

Upcoming DEAG festivals include the Sylt Open Air 2023 at the end of July with Sarah Connor and Scooter, Summer Nights in Glasgow; the Wider Than Pictures Series in Dublin; Germany’s Nature One at the beginning of August with over 70,000 fans expected; Indian Spirit in Eldena as well as the new PennFest in Buckinghamshire, England, as well as the established Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival” in Scotland.

For the first time, around 75% of the tickets for DEAG events were sold, some exclusively, via DEAG’s own online ticket distributors, myticket.de, myticket.co.uk, gigantic.com and tickets.ie.

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DEAG acquires majority stake in Airbeat One festival

DEAG has acquired a majority stake in Airbeat One, an electronic music festival which takes place annually in northern Germany.

Founded in 2002 by Music Eggert, the festival typically attracts around 60,000 visitors to Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern each year.

According to DEAG, Airbeat One is now the largest electronic music festival in northern Germany and one of the largest in Germany.

Following the acquisition, Sebastian Eggert from Music Eggert becomes managing director of Airbeat One GmbH, the new organiser of Airbeat One.

With his team, which will remain entirely with the festival, he will continue to run the event in the long term.

DEAG says it expects the takeover to create “synergy effects in the live entertainment business as well as positive impulses for the ticketing business, especially for DEAG Group company I-Motion”– organiser of electronic music festivals Nature One, Mayday, Syndicate, Toxicator and Ruhr-in-Love.

DEAG says it expects the takeover to create “synergy effects in the live entertainment business”

In addition, the company hopes the acquisition will result in “significant cost synergies as well as added values in purchasing and artist acquisition, among other areas”.

Oliver Vordemvenne, MD of I-Motion, says: “We are all delighted about the partnership and the co-operation with Sebastian and the whole team, who have built up one of the biggest electro music festivals in Germany and inspire thousands of fans from all over the world every year.

“Airbeat One is an excellent addition to DEAG’s portfolio. With Airbeat One, we unite two of the most successful electro music festivals in Germany under one roof and are excellently positioned in this field with now a total of six electro music festivals with over 200,000 visitors annually. With the acquisition of Airbeat One, we have also created very good conditions for the further expansion of our business activities.”

Sebastian Eggert, MD of Airbeat One, adds: “We are all very pleased to have DEAG as a strong partner for the further development of Airbeat One. We share the same vision for the festival with a clear focus on the visitors and want to continue to offer them an exceptional customer experience in the future. We are strongly rooted in the region of northern Germany and will stay here for the long term and drive our growth together with DEAG.”

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