The altstadtfest (old town festival) takes place on the first weekend in September, from Friday evening until Sunday night. The programme looked very worthy – concerts in the cathedral, jazz, international folk dancing, hip hop in the most remote corner of the town, gospel pop at St. Jakobi, and an authentic mediaeval market with craftsmen in costume demonstrating authentic mediaeval crafts.
The reality was slightly different. Admission to the official events was by way of an altstadtfest pass, which gave free entrance to everything for the 3 days for 4 Euro. They sold 30,000 of these. But the best part of half a million people rolled into town to enjoy the festival. The main streets in the centre of the town were closed to traffic, all those that weren’t pedestrian already, and filled with stalls, a cross between a funfair and a fete. All conceivable kinds of food and drink – Danish hot dogs, Belgian frites, English fish and chips, French crepes, and lots of Turkish, Thai, Chinese, and miscellaneous eastern cuisines. Local specialities too – endless sausages (well, up to 1 foot long), thick slices of bread and dripping, and large pickled gherkins at 50c each. The festival was sponsored by Holsten Pils, so it was no surprise that there were lots of opportunities to drink, but the organisers weren’t restrictive – you could buy fine wines by the glass, or various kinds of sekt and prosecco, and there were several stalls of Caribbean/Brazilian inclination, with loud salsa music to match the salsa eats and drinks. In quiet moments the serving staff danced and sang along to the music. The Guiness stand was accompanied by a young German man in a kilt, singing Beatles songs. Bungee trampolining, face painting and carousels for the children. Away from the centre the special interest groups came into play. Every church seemed to have taken advantage of the occasion for a little fund raising, with flea markets everywhere, particularly books. The home-made cakes stalls were doing a roaring trade, with the plates of cakes selling as soon as they were put out like, well, hot cakes. Political parties were giving away balloons, charities were selling anything saleable, and signing up members, and all the buildings in town seemed open to visitors for the day. My only complaint was that nothing started much before the opening times of the official events. At 1.00pm on the Saturday there were hundreds of thousands of hungry people milling around looking for something to spend money on, and hardly any of the food and drink stalls had opened. Good fun though.