Somehow, we had the urge for freedom
2011/2012 was the birth of the „Wurzel era“ in our home city of Berlin. We were no longer in the mood for the usual club events. Without further ado, we rented a sound system and a generator, asked our friends who wanted to make music and started our first „Zurück zu den Wurzeln Free Open Air“ – for our English-speaking guests – „Back to the roots Free Open Air“. The one-time event became the norm, and so we met regularly at varied and beautiful places in and around Berlin – allowing us to spend many amazing hours together. The „Wurzelfangemeinde” – our wider community – grew ever more and the 30 „Wurzel children“ from the first Open Air soon became hundreds who then came to visit us.
The desire to party together for a longer time became stronger: we started our first multi-day „Wurzel Open Air“ on an old industrial site. We are still quite proud of the fact that we were able to party for over 70 hours until the police discovered us.
After all, the positive experiences we enjoyed during our Open Airs simply meant that we just wanted to spend more time on the right side of the law with our Wurzel children, and so our „zu den Wurzeln“ Festival was born. From the beginning, we tried to transfer the spirit of our Wurzel Open Airs to our festival. We involved our guests/Wurzel children in the planning from the very beginning, and have since become a real participatory festival in our own right.
As one of our Wurzel founders so aptly said: If you have a yellow umbrella and think it’s cool as a decoration, then bring it along and hang it up!
In the meantime, we have gone from open air friends to festival organizers – what a journey. Yet we are still the guys and gals from next door and try to keep the spirit of the Free Open Airs at the festivals.