Mayday (music Festival)

Mayday (music Festival)

Mayday, like the former Love Parade, is one of the oldest and most reputed electronic music festivals in Germany, having its debut on 1991. Despite the name, Mayday festivals date oscilates between 30 April and December (these being called Winter Mayday). After 2000, the Winter Mayday started being played in Katowice, Poland, in Budapest, Hungary and in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The idea to support the East German youth radio DT64, which was to be liquidated in 1992, with a indoor rave was brought up by Fabian Lenz (DJ Dick) and was supported by his brother Maximilian Lenz (WestBam) and the techno magazine Frontpage.

Each Mayday has a theme composed by Members of Mayday, DJs WestBam and Klaus Jankuhn. The popularity of those "anthems" (with a 2001 album named "Anthems of the Decade 1991-2001") is very high, some agree it already reached cult status. Live performances (now commonly including three areas) featured high profile names such as Moby, Aphex Twin, The Prodigy, Jeff Mills, Carl Cox, Paul Van Dyk or Dr. Motte.