Host City Dortmund
The European chapter begins in Dortmund in 2027. Why this city — and what a festival of this size means for it.
Why Dortmund
The city brings what a festival needs
The choice fell not on the biggest stage but on the densest surroundings. More people live in less space in the Ruhr than anywhere else in Germany — and almost all of them are less than an hour away.
601.343
Inhabitants of Dortmund
As of 31 December 2023. Germany's ninth largest city, third largest in North Rhine-Westphalia.
5,1 Mio.
People in the Ruhr metropolis
Eleven independent cities and four districts across 4,439 km² — Germany's densest conurbation.
4.439 km²
Area of the Ruhr metropolis
Dortmund is its largest city, by area and by population.
Largest
Canal port in Europe
Dortmund's port connects the city to the North Sea via the Dortmund-Ems Canal.
Density, not distance
A festival lives on people coming spontaneously and returning on the second day. In a conurbation of 5.1 million that is a question of minutes, not of hotel nights.
An audience that goes out
The Ruhr has carried festival culture for decades. We are not bringing a format into a city that first has to learn that people go out in the evening.
Reachable from three directions
Long-distance rail, an airport and a dense motorway network. For exhibitors from across Europe that means short journeys and predictable logistics — the point where locations usually fail.
Room to build
An industrial city has space, halls and hauliers that can handle build-up weeks. It sounds unromantic and still decides whether a festival can happen at all.
Getting there
In minutes, not in hours
Rail travel times from Dortmund central station, rounded to the usual frequency. For an audience that is meant to come back on day two, this is the most important number on this page.
20
minutes to Essen
Regional express and S-Bahn at a dense frequency.
35
minutes to Münster
Direct, no change.
50
minutes to Düsseldorf
State capital and the region's second airport.
70
minutes to Cologne
By ICE, several times an hour.
150
minutes to Amsterdam
Direct ICE — for exhibitors from the Benelux countries.
25
minutes to the airport
Dortmund Airport, with direct connections across Europe.
Catchment
Fifteen authorities, one journey
The Regional Association Ruhr covers eleven independent cities and four districts. They sit so close together that the drive between them is shorter than finding a parking space at the far end — which is what makes them a single catchment rather than fifteen separate markets.
One hour, five million people
The 5.1 million inhabitants of the Ruhr metropolitan region are spread across 4,439 square kilometres. An audience of that size does not need to stay overnight for a day visit — which is why it comes back on the second day.
Dortmund as the anchor
With 601,343 inhabitants as of 31 December 2023, Dortmund is the largest city in the region and the ninth largest in Germany. That puts the festival at the centre of the catchment, not at its edge.
Beyond the region
Cologne, Düsseldorf and the Dutch border are within day-trip range. For exhibitors from the Benelux countries, Dortmund is closer than any other German festival city.
The Ruhr
A region that knows halls
Collieries became concert halls, blast furnaces became parks, and the audience has learned to celebrate in industrial architecture. A coffee festival in a former works hall is not an idea that needs explaining here.
What the city gets
Economic benefit, honestly reckoned
What a festival brings a city cannot be stated in euros beforehand with any seriousness. What we can state are the orders of magnitude from the existing locations — and where the money actually went there.
Overnight stays
A multi-day festival brings exhibitors, crews and out-of-town audiences into the city. In İstanbul, five per cent of visitors arrived as tourists in 2023 — across 116,000 visitors at three festivals that is several thousand people needing hotels.
Local hospitality
The festival does not cook for itself. Food concepts on the ground come from the city, and whatever happens afterwards happens in the places around it.
Local contracts
Stand construction, technology, security, cleaning, logistics — most of the budget stays in the region, because these trades cannot sensibly be imported.
Visibility
Across three festivals in 2023, television coverage reached an advertising equivalent of 15.08m TL and print 7.13m TL, plus 2,400 online reports. Part of that always shows the city, not only the festival.
Why a site matters
A festival is a traffic question first
Before anyone talks about programme, they talk about access: how the build-up vehicles get in, where they stand for the four days, and how far it is from the platform to the first stand. What looks like an area in these pictures is in truth a network of routes.
Tourism and hospitality
The city can handle guests
A festival with an out-of-town audience needs beds and kitchens that can take it. Dortmund has both — and the figures are public, not estimated.
1.583.100
Overnight stays in 2024
An all-time record, 5.7 per cent above 2023.
971.516
Guest arrivals in 2024
At an average stay of 1.6 days.
9.988
Guest beds
At 43.0 per cent occupancy — there is room for a festival week.
9,1 Mio.
Overnight stays, Ruhr region 2024
Across 4.6 million guest arrivals in the region as a whole.
Overnight stays in Dortmund
All commercial accommodation, 2010 to 2024. 2024 is the highest figure ever recorded.
Dortmund municipal statistics, data from IT.NRW
Show as a table
| Jahr | Übernachtungen | davon Ausland |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 861.625 | 176.818 |
| 2015 | 1.134.632 | 253.562 |
| 2020 | 673.061 | 111.526 |
| 2021 | 675.370 | 107.697 |
| 2022 | 1.189.766 | 233.990 |
| 2023 | 1.497.899 | 367.966 |
| 2024 | 1.583.100 | 435.316 |
Of which stays by international guests
The international share has more than doubled since 2010 — the more telling number for a European festival chapter.
Dortmund municipal statistics, data from IT.NRW
Beds within walking distance
9,988 guest beds at 43 per cent annual occupancy. A festival week moves that figure noticeably without overwhelming the city — unlike places where every trade fair triples room rates.
The festival does not cook for itself
The food concepts on the ground come from the city. We bring no catering chain with us, because a region with this density of hospitality does it better.
After the hall
What happens in the evening after the music programme happens in the places around it. That is not a side effect but the part of the benefit that stays in the city.
Already used to an international crowd
435,316 overnight stays by international guests in 2024 — more than double the 2010 figure. The city is used to receiving guests who speak no German.