Projectplace brings music to the people

Following the successful completion of the world’s largest music event, the Eurovision Song Contest, Projectplace is now off to help execute yet another musical event; this time around, Wacken Open Air, the most famous heavy metal festival in the world.

The festival is expected to attract some 75, 000 heavy metal enthusiasts in the German town of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein. To achieve smooth execution, the event agency, ICS Festival Service GmbH, is using the Projectplace collaboration tool to plan and organise all aspects of the three-day festival.

The complexity of the project is clear.

Some 75,000 visitors are to be welcomed and entertained over the course of three days in a village with a population of just 2,000. Thousands of visitors will be arriving from all over the world and make their way to Wacken. More than 120 international bands will be hosted at the event.

Already back in 2004, the Wacken planning team took a dramatic turn in their approach to planning.

“Up until 2004, Excel was used to plan the event - an impossible task,” says Jürgen Lochbrunner, Chief Stage Manager of the Wacken event team. “Since then, our core team of 100 international members has been using Projectplace for planning all aspects of the event - from file sharing and assigning access to the right information, to booking meetings and sharing a platform for communicating to achieve a common goal.”

"Without Projectplace, it would have been impossible. In fact, for some team members, Projectplace is as vital as their cell phone," continues Lochbrunner.

The sound engineers and lighting teams working the festival in Wacken are the same as those who worked the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. Years of experience using Projectplace has brought familiarity with the tool. Without a doubt, the teams will welcome using Projectplace, keeping once again Wacken’s reputation intact as host to the most famous heavy metal festival in the world.

“It was great seeing the success of the Eurovision Song Contest and we’re looking forward to the same in Wacken,” says Johan Zetterstöm, CEO of Projectplace. “With so many involved in these huge festivals, easy-to-use project tools are needed to enable successfully involving teams from all over the world.”

The motto at the Wacken festival is "Faster, Harder, Louder". We say: “On time, on budget, together.” concludes Zetterström.

As always, the Wacken Open Air will take place the first weekend in August.