Reeperbahn Festival

Awareness: For a safe and respectful togetherness

« Reeperbahn Festival should be a place where everyone can feel as comfortable and safe as possible. »
Act Aware & RBX GmbH

Our Vision

In order to get closer to this goal, we have developed an awareness concept together with Act Aware e.V. in 2022, which we continue to develop every year. In order to raise awareness of topics such as discrimination and crossing borders and to contribute to a sustainable change in the music landscape, the Reeperbahn Festival has awareness guidelines, awareness teams, awareness points and the possibility of direct contact via our telephone numbers, which can be found on posters on the event area. We have also included various programme items in our line-up that deal with the topic of awareness.

We believe that a respectful interaction is only possible if everyone takes the responsibility together. We face the challenge of bringing together different venues and participants in our festival concept. We meet this challenge by strengthening the knowledge of all team members on the topic of awareness, by offering various opportunities for interaction in our program for professional visitors from the music industry, and by creating an education and support program through trained awareness teams.

We are aware that awareness is a process in which we have to question, learn and unlearn together again and again.

We let experts accompany us through this development. We want to create and support structures that are free of discrimination and transgression. In this process, your opinion is extremely valuable. Therefore, we are always happy to receive feedback. If you have comments or questions about the concept, please contact us via our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) or via mail.

Our focus: Exchange!

We are directly implementing a major learning from last year: We want to place our focus even more on sharing with each other and create an offering that is accessible to everyone - regardless of how much knowledge they already have.

We have already started with our educational campaign ‘Handbook of Shared Responsibility’. Here we looked at eight topics on which we asked people from different areas: Awareness, Language, Safety, Consensus, Representation, Violence, Accessibility and Boundaries.

You can download these voices, background knowledge, tips and reflection questions as a PDF on the Reeperbahn Festival website.

There will also be a networking event for organisers as part of our conference programme. The exchange formats at the Awareness Point in the Festival Village and the panel ‘Collective Empowerment | Learning from feminist music collectives’ are open to everyone. Find out more in our programme.

Handbook of Shared Responsibility(only in German)

Awareness Guidelines

Diese Richtlinien sollen einen Rahmen für ein gemeinsames Handeln geben, wenn wir uns auf dem Reeperbahn Festival begegnen.

Mindful togetherness: We treat each other with respect and responsibility.

We respect individual boundaries and act according to the consensus principle "Only yes means yes!"

We do not conclude a person's gender from their appearance and strive to use gender-sensitive language.

We do not tolerate fascist and discriminatory symbols on our festival grounds.

Forms of discrimination such as sexism, racism, ableism, queerphobia as well as physical and psychological violence will lead to exclusion from the event.

Power of definition: Only the person affected decides what she perceives as a boundary violation. We believe her and are partisan with her.

What you can do…

Have you ever heard of the term "Allyship"?

Allyship means to become an ally, to take action and support those affected by discrimination.

You can be an ally by...

look & act actively - in the sense of the person affected.
listen to & follow discriminated people on social media.
inform yourself - about discrimination and terminology.
give affected people space & keep your perspective in the background.
donate time or money to disadvantaged communities.
talk to your friends and learn together.
address a grievance & intervene.
confront your privileges.

For terms related to awareness, here is a glossary.

Important: Always consider your own limits and those of others.

If you observe a situation that seems wrong or you feel that another person is not doing well, check your own capacity to intervene or support. If you feel unable to do so, be sure to tell another person.

If you decide to intervene, talk directly to the person involved and ask if she needs your support. If she does not want it, respect that. If she does need your support, ask her what would help her.

Important: Always respect your own boundaries and those of others

If you observe a situation that seems wrong to you or you have the feeling that another person is not doing well, check your own capacity to intervene or provide support. If you don't feel able to do this, make sure you tell another person.

If you decide to intervene, speak directly to the person concerned and ask them if they need your support. If they do not want this, respect this. If they do need your support, ask them what would help them.