From around 3,000 to more than 25,000 guests, from Osterode to the Teufelsmauer, from a small-scale metal festival to an event whose tickets sell out long in advance: ROCKHARZ has changed significantly over the past two decades. But how much growth can a festival handle without losing its identity? I spoke with Kai Wilhelm, who has known ROCKHARZ from different perspectives since 2005.
My own connection to ROCKHARZ goes back to 2010. That year, I completed an internship at the festival, which had moved from Osterode to Ballenstedt, at the foot of the Teufelsmauer, just one year earlier. A lot has happened since then. The festival, whose history began in 1993 with a “Rock gegen Rechts” concert, has since become one of the established names in Germany’s metal festival scene.
Kai Wilhelm was already there in 2005. At first, he covered ROCKHARZ with a camera and, together with his team, produced the festival DVDs for several years. Today, he is a permanent member of the ROCKHARZ team and is responsible, among other things, for press and communications.
In our conversation, he explains why he already felt at home at ROCKHARZ back then, why not every economically attractive decision is necessarily a good one, and what absolutely should still feel the same ten years from now.
You have been involved with ROCKHARZ since 2005. Before becoming part of the organization, you covered the festival with a camera and worked on the DVDs, among other things. Did that outside perspective influence the way you later viewed ROCKHARZ as an organizer?
Not directly, but back then I more or less lost my heart to this festival, and my contact with the organizers, specifically Dani and Buddy, never really stopped over the years. I was invited back from time to time in the years that followed, even when I wasn’t directly working at the festival.
For me, ROCKHARZ was already a very special oasis within the festival scene back then. Through my work in video production, I also spent time at several other festivals, but nowhere did I feel as “at home” as I did here.
Of course, at the time I didn’t have anything like the insight into the organizational structure that I have today. So it was very exciting when, a good three years ago, I was offered the chance to become a permanent part of the team. Given our shared history, I didn’t need much time to think about it.
Looking back, there was no real break in how I perceived the festival, only a change in perspective. The family-like atmosphere that visitors experience, and which guests often describe as something “special” about ROCKHARZ, also runs throughout the entire team. I think that is probably what allows it to be carried from the inside to the outside.
Despite all the work and organizational effort involved, it often feels more as though a group of friends are working together on a shared project that everyone lives and breathes.
So from within the organizing team, the view is not all that different. As an outsider, you want a festival you enjoy going to, where you feel comfortable and where you find yourself in a familiar, family-like atmosphere. As organizers, we want exactly the same thing, and we have the opportunity to create it.
If someone attended the festival in 2005 and came back for the first time today, what would they barely recognize? Or, put the other way around, what has changed surprisingly little?
If you ignore the not entirely insignificant fact that the number of guests has multiplied many times over, there actually aren’t that many things they wouldn’t recognize. Of course, it makes a difference that there are now more than 25,000 guests instead of around 3,000 as there were in 2005.
A lot of things are simply “a bit bigger,” and of course the organization and processes are more professionally structured. No festival in 2026 looks exactly the way it did in 2005. There are flush toilets almost everywhere now, shower camps, and the food offering has become much more varied and diverse.
Aside from that, though, I think a sense of familiarity would return fairly quickly. Even in 2026, a visit to ROCKHARZ still gives you a feeling of slowing down, of taking a breath away from everyday life.
One thing that certainly contributes to that is the fact that there are only these two stages, which alternate with each other. You can comfortably see all the bands you want to see. The distances are also short. From almost any corner of the campsite, no matter how far away it is, it takes no more than 20 minutes to reach the infield.
There is no excessive eventization, no fairground, no Ferris wheel or anything like that. Even in 2026, ROCKHARZ is still a festival that stays close to the “basics,” the way some people may remember festivals from the 1990s and 2000s: camping, beer and music.
In 2009, ROCKHARZ moved from Osterode to Ballenstedt, at the Teufelsmauer. What did you deliberately take with you, and what did you have to leave behind in Osterode?
What we deliberately took with us was the firm intention to continue creating a festival that we ourselves would want to attend as guests.
Since we had already changed locations within Osterode two years earlier, there wasn’t that much sense of separation, apart from the emotional connection to the festival’s original home.
We also deliberately brought many partners, friends and helpers with us, people who had supported us on the festival grounds year after year during festival week. Even today, there are still people working behind the scenes whom I first met and came to appreciate in Osterode back in 2005.
I also think that this ROCKHARZ DNA, which has grown together over the years, is one of the things that contributes to the festival’s overall family atmosphere.
Is there anything from the 2000s that you sometimes miss today?
Honestly? No. Except maybe that I used to see much more of the bands. Laughs.
Working as an external service provider in the 2000s came with considerably less pressure and responsibility. Once everything was wrapped up, we could more easily have a beer at the end of the day and watch a band or two from a “fan’s perspective.”
But that is a purely subjective view. Today, I personally carry more responsibility and my area of work is broader. The total amount of actual playing time I consciously watched across all four festival days this year was less than ten minutes.
I think it was probably already the same for the core organizing team back in 2005. But as part of the team today, I can actively help to pick up on things people might miss and integrate them into the festival.
Internally, we approach a lot of things with the question: What would we ourselves like to experience at this festival as visitors? What matters to us from a guest’s point of view? And what would we consider rather uncool?
That actually makes up a large part of our work. At the same time, of course, we always have to weigh economic interests, effort, feasibility, usefulness and personal ideas against one another. But that is part of the job.
At the end of the day, metal fans tend to be traditionalists and are very sensitive when it comes to change. And since everyone on our team has a metal fan’s heart beating inside them too, that includes us.
Today, more than 25,000 people attend ROCKHARZ, and the 2027 festival is already sold out. Can a festival of this size still feel like a family? And is there a point at which growth is no longer automatically something positive for you?
The fact that the festival still feels family-like is definitely one of the most common descriptions we receive in guest feedback, whether on site, on social media or in external reporting. Very often it even comes with the addition “despite the size it has reached by now.” So there must be something to it.
In recent years, we have only grown as moderately as possible and as much as was economically necessary. At most, by around 10% at a time. Between 2023 and 2025, there was no growth at all, and 2027 will be exactly the same size as this year.
Our goal is also not to become the biggest festival at any cost. Our ambition is to be the BEST festival.
Because virtually all costs in the events industry have risen dramatically in recent years, moderate growth was necessary in order to absorb those additional costs without passing them on entirely through ticket prices or beer prices.
Apart from that, growth is a value-neutral term to me at first. It is not automatically positive, but neither is it inherently negative.
If the festival suddenly felt different from one day to the next, if it lost its charm, its atmosphere and the sense of togetherness, if its recognizability disappeared and it turned into just another interchangeable major event because everyone was chasing numbers, then we would have crossed the point where I could still see anything positive in that kind of growth.
Visitors ultimately see stages, bands and the festival grounds. What work behind the scenes is particularly important in making sure ROCKHARZ still feels like ROCKHARZ?
I already mentioned that even today I still come across people working behind the scenes whom I first saw working there in 2005. That runs through almost every area of the festival.
Almost everyone in the permanent core team who now makes important decisions and is responsible for a major area has some kind of ROCKHARZ background.
One person may have worked security for us in the past, another may have earned some extra money working behind a bar during school holidays, or, like me, may have been involved “on the fringes” as an external service provider.
I think that is a good foundation for communicating a shared feeling. The fact that external service providers and seasonal workers have also remained connected to the festival for years is another important part of that.
Of the roughly 600 employees who now work on and around ROCKHARZ during festival week, more than 70% are repeat offenders who come back to us year after year.
Some of them originally only worked here during university holidays and now take annual leave from their full-time jobs just to spend this one week working with us and helping out.
You notice that as a guest too. You drive onto the site and recognize the person directing traffic from last year and the year before. You head to the first beer stand and the person behind the counter is a familiar face who has already saved you from dying of thirst many times before.
I can’t really name one “particularly important” job that makes ROCKHARZ what it is.
It is the sum of everyone involved, a close-knit community in which each individual looks forward to this one week of the year because they meet friends here, reunite with people and then contribute their part to making the festival work.
It is quite similar with our guests. Around 90% of all tickets are bought by returning customers, and on the campsite, people meet up year after year even though they live hundreds of kilometers apart for the rest of the year.
In my view, that special ROCKHARZ feeling comes from both sides.
Are there decisions where you consciously chose not to take the easiest or most economically attractive route because something else simply suited the festival better?
Every day. Laughs.
That ranges from very ordinary decisions about which service providers we work with, to the selection of our food and non-food vendors, right through to the decision to operate only this one twin-stage setup instead of adding more stages or other attractions in order to create more advertising opportunities, content and entertainment.
We even choose potential sponsors based on whether they fit us, and not simply based on the size of the check.
We try to offer our guests a place to take a break, an opportunity to leave everyday life behind for a week and simply enjoy a festival among friends.
“Metal, Beer and best Friends,” rather than bombarding people at every corner with flashing, blaring and intrusive advertising.
We really do make decisions almost every day where, when the choice is between “easy and economically attractive” and “right for the festival,” we deliberately choose the latter.
You emphasize that you consciously make decisions based on what suits ROCKHARZ rather than purely on economic considerations. Since 2025, DEAG has held a majority stake in the festival. How do you make sure that in future you can still make decisions against short-term economic interests when they are important to the character of ROCKHARZ?
Part of the answer is already contained in one word in the question: “short-term” interests.
ROCKHARZ has existed for almost 35 years. It is also a very economically successful festival, and that at a time when the events industry is groaning and struggling, when festivals and event series are shutting down, and when organizers are being overwhelmed by rapid change and cost explosions in almost every area.
Another part of the answer lies in the way a DEAG participation actually works: Never change a running system.
Perhaps it is worth taking a step back and explaining how and under what circumstances the DEAG participation came about in the first place. There are many different reasons and many different models when one company sells shares and another company acquires them.
In our case, and entirely without pressure or necessity, we were the ones who started looking at possible ways of putting the future of ROCKHARZ on a foundation that was no longer dependent solely on a two-person GmbH.
It makes a difference whether those two people are mainly responsible for themselves and their own self-employment while organizing an event for perhaps up to 10,000 guests, or whether those two people are responsible for more than 25,000 guests and 14 to 15 permanent employees, whose families and livelihoods also depend on that.
The fact that ROCKHARZ, or rather VERUGA GmbH, is a successful company and that the festival itself has developed with healthy growth and stable financial figures gave us the luxury of being able to define for ourselves what mattered to us when looking for the right partner.
We were able to familiarize ourselves with different models without any pressure to sell something “at all costs.” From the very beginning, we decided: If something does not feel right, we will not do it. If we can no longer shape our festival the way we want to, we will not do it.
So we spoke openly and without pressure with people and potential partners and ruled out classic investor models very early on.
If we were going to look for a partner at all, we wanted one who trusted us, who communicated with us on an equal footing, who understood our festival and who was interested in “long-term” and sustainable economic success.
We already had a good example in WIZARD Live, with whom we have worked successfully for many years as a concert agency in the booking sector and who have been part of the DEAG family since 2013.
In the end, the model behind DEAG convinced us. The group invests in economically successful companies, so from its own perspective there is no reason to interfere with the way these companies are run or the strategic decisions they make.
The individual companies under the DEAG umbrella also remain almost completely autonomous. Some have done so for decades.
At the same time, DEAG offers long-term security and an excellent network of opportunities, expertise and partners, where successful concepts can be shared and everyone can benefit from one another.
DEAG itself functions more like an “umbrella” and does not actively interfere in the day-to-day business of the individual companies operating under it.
So at ROCKHARZ, we are still the same people making decisions, the same team, with the same organizational and responsibility structure as before the partnership, and we continue to organize the festival according to the same principles. That is also a formally agreed part of the participation.
Within DEAG, we enjoy a high degree of recognition and respect for what we do and how we do it.
Even if this sounds a little arrogant and self-important now: There is a reason why ROCKHARZ is successful, and part of that reason lies in the way we work and the basis on which we make decisions and have made decisions in the past. Both sides understand and appreciate that within this partnership.
If a festival defines its identity so strongly through community, then the question inevitably arises of who is actually able to be part of that community.
With “Kultur für alle,” ROCKHARZ has been working for years to make it as natural as possible for people with disabilities to attend the festival. This commitment has since developed further through “Ungehindert dabei,” an initiative that goes beyond ROCKHARZ itself and also supports other organizers in making their events more accessible.
If community is so central to ROCKHARZ, what does that mean in practical terms for people who still encounter barriers at festivals? And what role does the size of the festival play in that today?
We have been pursuing the idea behind “Kultur für Alle” at ROCKHARZ for several years now, and fundamentally that has nothing to do with size. We simply want to make it possible for everyone to attend our festival.
From our point of view, culture is a right for everyone, and we find it unacceptable that people with disabilities are often denied access simply because, for example, they cannot get up a flight of stairs somewhere.
So we spoke directly to the people affected: What do you need? What makes everyday life at a festival difficult for you? What would have to be in place so that you could arrive without worrying and spend a few days enjoying music?
Then we tried to find solutions, create opportunities and implement things step by step.
The growing size of the festival mainly helped us in the sense that with more than 25,000 guests, you reach a much larger public.
I believe that as an organizer, you also have a certain social responsibility, and you should fulfill that responsibility within the possibilities available to you.
One possibility is to implement measures that make it easier for people with disabilities to attend your own event. In principle, any event can do that, even one with only 500 or 1,000 guests.
Another possibility is to raise awareness among a larger public, lead by example and demonstrate that solutions are possible and how they can work.
A festival with more than 25,000 guests naturally has a much louder voice in that respect and can draw far more attention to an issue.
That opportunity is also something we consciously recognized and used because the subject genuinely matters to us.
The work pursued by the association “Ungehindert dabei,” namely developing solutions together with and for other events in order to make them more accessible, also carries greater weight and potentially reaches more people thanks to the experience and involvement of a festival of our size.
But for us, this is not about defining what we want ROCKHARZ to be. It is about the fact that it should simply be taken for granted that people with disabilities should have the opportunity to attend ANY event they want to attend.
If you could attend ROCKHARZ today simply as a visitor, without any organizational responsibilities, where would you stand, and which moment of the festival would you just enjoy?
I would stand a little farther back, in front of the FOH, between the two stages, or preferably sit there, and watch everything going on around me while still having a good view of the bands.
Alternatively, a deck chair on the VIP platform would also be okay. Laughs.
But since I actually find it difficult to stay sitting or standing in one place for very long, I would probably just wander around the site all day.
At least once, I would have to walk up to the Teufelsmauer to enjoy that incomparable view over the festival grounds at dusk.
I have actually done that once in all these years, and that moment is still one of my most formative and memorable ROCKHARZ experiences.
If we talk about ROCKHARZ again in ten years, what should have developed further by then, and what absolutely must not have been lost?
In ten years, efforts toward inclusion should no longer be something that needs to be discussed or highlighted separately, but should be as natural and everyday as fries and beer.
What absolutely must not be lost is the feeling that you find yourself among friends and family here, even when you are surrounded by complete strangers, that for one week you can put life on hold and take a break, and that by Saturday, during Buddy’s traditional closing speech, you are already looking forward to next year.
