Wave Gotik Treffen

Wave Gotik Treffen (WGT) is an annual world festival for Gothic fashion and art in Leipzig, Germany. It’s also a festival to promote dark music. The festival also features several fairs with medieval, gothic and cultural merchandise. It’s perhaps the largest event for the Goth community anywhere in the world. All over the city there are more than 150 bands, projects and single artists, performing on about 20 stages and artists from various music backgrounds (Gothic rock, Electronic Body Music (EBM), Darkwave, Medieval Music, Neofolk, Neoclassical, Experimental, Gothic metal, Deathrock and Punk) play at several venues throughout the city over 4 days on Whitsuntide. The events take place for instance in the vaults of the “Moritzbastei”, in the splendid neo-antique cupola hall of the “Volkspalast”, in the crypt of the “Völkerschlachtdenkmal”, a famous monument of the battle of 1813, as well as in large concert halls. Once more the WGT will cover the whole wide range of Gothic-music: from Electro-Pop to Goth-Metal, from EBM to Neofolk, from medieval music to Industrial. The WGT is the largest event of the Goth subcultures with its regular 25,000 attendants (unofficially up to 30,000) and it is the biggest gathering of its kind worldwide. It’s closely followed by the annual M'era Luna festival in Hildesheim, Germany with 20,000-25,000 attendants.

WGT was made in 1987 in Postdam but only a few hundred visitors attended. At that time this event is illegal on the eye of the law of the German Democratic Republic. The first official WGT was held in the Eiskeller club in 1992, after the re-unification of Germany. Since then, the number of visitors has increased greatly and most well-known bands of the genres favored by visitors have played at the Treffen at least once.

However, from its beginning the Wave-Gotik-Treffen have been much more than a music festival, the guests will find a medieval market place and a pagan village, they have authors reading, theatre and cinematic performances. One of the big halls on agra-fairground will turn into the biggest Gothic-warehouse of the world for four days. There will also be a large fetish party where entrance is only possible following a strict dress code.

Wave-Gotik Treffen is the event that synonym with the band performances. Generally, the number of musical acts is close to 200, spanning the breadth of "dark music" from acoustic folk to Medieval-influence to deathrock to elektro/EBM/industrial.

There are also Renaissance fairs, Viking and Pagan markets, Gothic Romance events, literary readings, artist signing events, brunches celebrating Absinthe, and many late-night dance clubs. The date of the WGT varies from year to year. It is held on the German holiday weekend of Pfingsten, which is 7 weeks after Easter. Unofficial events start in Leipzig on the Thursday night preceding the date of Pfingsten, while the official festival starts on Friday and runs until early-morning on Tuesday, as Monday is an official holiday in Germany.

* This year Wave Gotik Treffen will be held on 29th May 2009 until 1 June 2009.