2023-09-14 13:10:00
The Rockhouse turns 30 and things are going well: visitor numbers are approaching pre-pandemic levels.
Wolf Arrer can save himself the announcements at a few concerts: Element of Crime, sold out! Sportfreunde Stiller, sold out. There’s also the Salzburg rock band Steaming Satellites, who are coming with a new album, and the rapper Bibiza; all cards gone. It’s on at the Salzburg Rockhouse, that quickly became clear at the program press conference on Thursday.
“This year we will reach the level of 2019 in terms of visitor numbers,” says Wolfgang Descho, managing director at Rockhouse. 43,000 visitors came in 2019. In 2022, when only limited operations might take place partly due to pandemic regulations, there were 35,000 there. “We pushed through despite all the adversities, such as the restriction on the number of spectators,” says Descho. The fact that you were always there is now paying off. In addition, “although some habits when dealing with music have changed over the last few years,” one thing remains unchanged: “The desire for a shared live experience.” He notices that a younger audience is particularly attracted to events such as large festivals, where music is not necessarily the top priority. That’s what she does at Rockhouse. “We have to be careful that the individual live event doesn’t get lost,” he says. The numbers in Rockhouse show that it’s worth “working for it”.
One day of the annual “Birthday Party” in October is already sold out. Because it’s a big birthday – the 30th – the celebration will take place over two days this year. Among others, Avec, the Salzburg indie heroes Please Madame, Bukahara and Bon Jour are coming. The festival shows the spectrum that the house stands for: the offering ranges from indie folk to electropop to eternal heroes. And of course you can also find “a local touch in almost all areas of the program,” says Descho. In the opening act for big acts or at the Birthday Party, but most notably in the Local Heroes series, which has been around as long as the Rockhouse and where the 1000th band performed last July. At the moment, however, the number of young bands is not as large as it was before Corona, says Descho, who has curated the Local Heroes track “for 30 years and will continue to do so.”
So some things will remain the same around the birthday, but following these 30 years there will also be changes.
For Wolf Arrer it was the last program presentation. He is retiring at the end of the year following 26 years as program director at Rockhouse. “There are a bit of mixed feelings when I stand there for the last time – but I only notice that when someone asks me regarding it,” he says. The team and he would also have done what was one of the Rockhouse’s orders for the last season he was responsible for. “Concept cleverly and on a realistic scale,” he says, and – for example in the “Eleven Empire” series for which Sebastian König is responsible – always in the highest quality, even “off the beaten track of the mainstream”.
Program details and tickets: www.rockhouse.at
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