Following a three-year break, the PAROOKAVILLE festival finally enjoyed its highly anticipated comeback. Under perfect weather conditions, an audience of 225,000 attendees from over 40 countries along with millions of spectators streaming online welcomed Germany’s largest Electronic Music Festival back to Weeze Airport from July 22nd to the 24th. Show highlights from Tiësto, Steve Aoki, Scooter, and over 300 other acts heralded the event’s triumphant return. The participating artists and the festival organizers are overwhelmed by the positive feedback from attendees and stream viewers online.
Sunday night saw the closing of the city gates at the sixth edition of Germany’s craziest festival city for this year. Over 3 show days and 5 camping days, including a Pre-Party on Thursday, PAROOKAVILLE Citizens ecstatically danced and celebrated the return of their favorite festival. The line-up was as diverse and international as the festivalgoers themselves. Global EDM stars including Tiësto, Steve Aoki, Nervo, and Robin Schulz and party acts like Querbeat, Blümchen, 257ers, and the surprise performance by Olaf der Flipper on Saturday brought the euphoria back home where it belongs. The Flippers hit “Wir sagen danke schön” is currently going viral, and it became the unofficial campsite hymn of the weekend.
Co-founder and co-organizer Bernd Dicks summarised his team’s emotions by saying, “We’ve been planning ahead for three years, and finally we were able once again to build our favorite city for all of our Citizens. The entire team worked extremely hard for this, and we were rewarded with the pure love of life in the city and at the campsite. PAROOKAVILLE is the largest, most peaceful, and most unique Electronic Music festival in Germany, and we can hardly wait for its return again in 2023.”
The PAROOKAVILLE Live Stream presented by ING bank was transmitted in the vertical 9:16 format on TikTok and in the classic 16:9 format on other platforms. The reach of the 21- hour live broadcast over the course of the three days was significantly greater than even the 2019 event, with the positive response reflected in over five million “Likes” on TikTok alone.
In line with the original plans of the festival’s fictitious founder Bill Parooka, the wide array of city elements merged again into an incomparable overall experience morphing into a music festival, an amusement park, and a museum. The city jail provided tattoos, and the Registration Office stamped innumerable PAROOKAVILLE residents’ passports and sent postcards back to their loved ones at home. The on-site PENNY supermarket kept the 45,000 campers fed and hydrated with its two stores and served up fresh vegan dishes to Citizens in the city.
The city concept was renewed and expanded again with several new modules perfectly integrated into the city’s landscape. The upper deck of the Wodka Gorbatschow “Icebreaker”, replete with a real ship’s horn, offered the very best view of Bill’s Factory and the “flying” Jägermeister bottle wowed attendees as a three-story club, while others enjoyed chatting at the Asbach Uraltersheim rest home over bingo and Rüdesheim coffee. And the annual PAROOKAVILLE ceremony on Saturday night featuring a gigantic fireworks show gave everyone in attendance goosebumps.
Global DJ star Tiësto is also a huge PAROOKAVILLE fan who expressed his love for the layout of the City of Dreams: “One of the things I love about PAROOKAVILLE is the uniquely original concept – you live in a city that doesn’t exist the rest of the year. It’s really something special to be here. The crowd looks incredible. All kinds of people celebrate here – I love that.“
The festival will return again in 2023 on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of July to celebrate even bigger than this year. Stay informed on the latest news on PAROOKAVILLE’s official website.
Cover photo credit @julianhuke
