Great things always cast their shadows before. And I think the 10th edition of the festival is more than just a veritable reason to celebrate. Hardly to believe how quick time passes by. Germany’s biggest Pagan/Viking/Folk and Black Festival (and there is actually no other like that in Europe and around) celebrates its 10th anniversary. CONGRATULATION RAGNARÖK FESTIVAL!

Line-up lives up its demand offering many highlights, although many of those bands already played the RAGNARÖK FESTIVAL several times but announced special anniversary shows. Be prepared anyway ;)

Heretoir - Shining - Eluveitie - Dornenreich - Agrypnie - Fjoergyn - Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Ava Inferi - Winterstorm - Darkest Era - Hellride - Nothgard - Abinchova

Secrets Of The Moon - Vreid - Carpathian Forest - Solefald - Nocte Obducta - Menhir - Helrunar - Riger - Obscurity - Eis - Maladie - In Vain - Under That Spell - Midnattsol - Northland - Asenblut - Rabenwolf

:: Livestories :: Friday :: Saturday ::

:: Photos :: Friday :: Saturday ::

So, let’s take the road towards Lichtenfels, Upper Franconia. I was blessed with a blue sky and pure sun yet with wintry temperatures hardly above 0°C. Huh, made me feel with the ones on the camping ground. I finally made it to start one day earlier, so I started absolutely relaxed, had free highways and could stop for some sightseeing spots, had a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant and enough sleep to start into the first festival day :) Great!
Side note: Seems like that Bavaria gave up on winegrowing and got into “sungrowing” ;) I saw more solar plantations than vineyards.

General summary:

Also the 10th RAGNARÖK FESTIVAL was all in all a well-done event and worthy is meaning.
Not that much has changed, except for the fact that the Legacy magazine is out and the Metal.de magazine in for signing sessions. Whenever I looked around the corner there was not that much activities there. There is no festival journal this year, despite of the anniversary, just a flyer from Metal.de with the running order and signing session times printed. This was bad.
No queues, no throngs at the entry. Nice :)

There is a new security company, • HSP • and I have to say, those guys were absolutely nice, polite and very obliging. If there were obscurities appearing they went out immediately to get them sorted out. Thank you HSP!

Regarding the annual problem with the waste I had the feeling that things went better this year, that there was less waste.
Prices for drinking did not change, prices for food increased. There were booths for crepes (with many sorts of coffee and tea), pizza, steak and chips and Garlic bread. Not enough, if you ask me, especially, since the pizza man did not make it on time to serve the long queue. Another both with pasta or some Asia stuff or this soup booth we had some years ago, would have been fine.
Good thing: the embarrassing booze stall was deleted.
Bad thing: the Met was empty already Saturday afternoon.

And now the one thing I have to NAG ABOUT! Despite of all public statements and demonstrations against all kind of political bullshit, right (or left wing extremism). How can a certain band for example be deleted from the billing because of its statements and attitudes but its members always again invited to be VIP guests on the festival? And also promote a certain festival? Sorry, but that’s hypocritical!
But let’s talk about the bands and their shows…

story & pics © Dajana