Living in the proximity of the Cannstatter Wasen since 2002, I've heard and seen a lot of the high-life there, some from my window but most from the pavement on and surrounding the good old festival grounds. I've written about it a number of times, as a search for "Wasen" on this blog will show.
The Wasenfest and Frühlingsfest (Sept.-Oct. and April-May every year) are among the largest folk festivals in the world. Over 4 million guests enjoyed the beer and rides during the three-week fest last fall and, on account of the perfect weather in early 2018, 1.6 million visitors made it out to the spring fest.
My friends' and acquaintances' opinions are split on this issue. Some wouldn't miss it for the world; they seek their fortune there and their children look forward to riding the Ferris wheel and eating cotton candy with friends twice a year.
Others look forward to getting sloshed with their colleagues in the huge beer tents; for 16 year-olds it's a right of passage to fill up with a couple of liters of beer with your classmates and then try to hold it in on the most extreme rides. Judging from the ground in front of the roller coasters, many don't succeed.
Still other friends find it too loud and too full of drunken nuts, especially in the autumn. Tourists arrive in their smelly "Oktoberfest 20XX" T-shirts when that fest is over and keep on drinking in Stuttgart. The subways are full of traditionally garbed twentysomethings and smell of alcohol six weeks a year.
My photographer friends go there, as I do, to shoot the action and, after dark, the lights. Lights, camera, action!
For years now, I've shot the standard motifs and come to know the faces of the people working there. I sometimes talk with the workers when I'm walking around before it gets busy. They are often Romanians, as is the man below, so we talk about the delicious food in his home country.
But another aspect of the whole business has come to fascinate me. They begin building the "tents" - 5,000-square-meter buildings - several weeks in advance and it takes them just as long to deconstruct. Behind all the shine is a life on the road for the workers and owners of the rides. The buildings, the rails, the haunted house - they all have to fit on trucks and are moved to the next fest until it is time to return to Bad Cannstatt. And every day before the visitors arrive, they wash their stands and make them as attractive as possible.
This year when the festivities were over, I wandered across the grounds and got some shots of the take-down. Behind one of the largest buildings is a room where the waiters can rest.
Inside one of the beer tents.
They need a lot of equipment to move a roller coaster.
Everything must go.
Water is not the most important liquid at the fairgrounds, but it is important!
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