2023-06-07 09:20:00
Members of the Rammstein group’s entourage asked the organization of the Festival d’été de Québec to find them young girls for a party that took place after the concert on the Plains of Abraham in 2010, a request who was refused, learned The Journal.
• Read also: Rammstein singer accused of sexual assault: protective measures for female audience demanded by the German government
• Read also: Rammstein singer accused of being a sexual predator by dozens of young women
“They asked for that and they were told no. We told them it didn’t work here,” recalls Daniel Gélinas, who was the general manager of the FEQ at the time.
This information has been corroborated by the current FEQ team.
“Difficult to go back with precision in our memories of 2010 but it seems to us to have received a request from the touring team of the group to facilitate contact with spectators, a request that our reception staff as well as our production management refused. confirms Samantha McKinley, vice-president of communications for the festival.
According to journalistic investigations published in German media in recent days, singer Till Lindemann sexually assaulted several young girls thanks to a recruitment system deployed during the group’s concerts. Two of them say they were drugged without their knowledge and assaulted.
An employee of the group would have acted as a harvester. She filmed and photographed girls sitting in the front row so that Lindemann, described as a sexual predator, could choose which ones they wanted to invite to the party. She was fired on Tuesday.
In 2010, even though the leaders of the FEQ had refused to play the matchmaker, people from the Rammstein team still tried to carry out a knockdown in the festival’s corporate box, which is located very close to the stage, on The plains.
“We asked them what are you doing there. They told us they were coming to see if there were any girls. They were told to leave. They left,” says Daniel Gélinas.
“We had never seen that. It never happened for other artists. Employees were outraged,” he also mentioned.
Photo agence QMI, Mario Beauregard
A party finally did take place after the concert, backstage. Young girls took part, according to a source who confided in the Journal and who was present during this evening held after the concert which had gathered more than 75,000 people.
To date, no guest at the party has filed an assault complaint, either in 2010 or during Rammstein’s return to the Summer Festival in 2016.
Since their visit to the FEQ in 2010, the Germans have also played in Montreal in 2011, 2012 and 2022. Contacted by The Journala spokeswoman for promoter evenko said that she had not heard of any problematic behavior by the group during its visits to the metropolis.
– With the collaboration of Raphaël Gendron-Martin
The German government on Tuesday requested protective measures for the female public of Rammstein after accusations of sexual assault against the singer of the metal group.
“Young people in particular need to be better protected against attacks,” German Family Minister, environmentalist Lisa Paus, told AFP, as Rammstein, one of Europe’s best-known metal bands , is in full tour on the continent.
The Minister proposes in particular the establishment of protective zones for women during concerts as well as teams likely to intervene in the event of sexual assault.
We must discuss “quickly and concretely” protective measures, asks the minister, for whom “a serious debate on the responsibility of artists and organizers vis-à-vis their fans would be useful”.
In Quebec, special mobile squads have been set up in the main festivals in recent years to help vulnerable people at concerts, in particular female spectators.
At evenko, Les Hirondelles has been in service since 2017. In Quebec City, at the Summer Festival, we created La Brigade in 2018.
“We don’t wait for a situation like that of Rammstein to happen to put in place initiatives, means and resources,” says Samantha McKinley, vice-president of communications at the FEQ.
She adds, however, that in light of the Rammstein affair, “we will look again at the mechanisms that are in place to ensure that we avoid unfortunate situations like that.”
– By AFP and Cédric Bélanger
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