Security measures transform Bayreuth – Terra Colombia

Ni red carpet or official reception. This year’s Bayreuth Festival has been transformed to increase security against attacks in Germany. Rick Fulker reports from Bayreuth.

In the images of the trials could be a fence at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. Rumors claimed that had fenced for security reasons, but I have found that that is not so. The street leading to the Green Hill theater is open to traffic. It was only expected close before and during the inaugural performance on Monday (7/25/2016), which leads to Parsifal scene of Richard Wagner.

However, everything seems to have changed a little

No red carpet this year in Bayreuth, as a sign of respect for the victims of Munich attacker last Friday (07/22/2016) took the lives of nine young and himself. So there will be no comment on the outfit Angela Merkel and other distinguished guests. It is something unprecedented in the recent history of the Festival. Your press representative, Peter Emmerich, does not remember something. For the same reason, the usual reception offered by the Bavarian prime minister was also canceled.

Germany, shaken by violence

In the city of Ansbach, located only about 135 kilometers from Bayreuth, was on Sunday an explosion during the celebration of a music festival. Twelve people were injured. By this chain of unfortunate incidents, journalists flock to Bayreuth this year receive their press accreditation, after verifying his identity, after passing through a narrow corridor to the right of the theater leading to the press office.

The family atmosphere is over

As a journalist, I am used to do interviews before the Festival. Since 1989, I have absented only twice. Now you enter the room to do interviews in another way: I was not allowed access to the press entrance, but through a side door. I identified, fill out a form and received my accreditation badge. A desk clerk called up to the press office, and someone picked me up and walked me to the office. Until he arrived, a security officer was watching me all the time. I’ve done four interviews in this issue and the procedure has been the same in all: misunderstandings with the desk clerk, who spoke anything but a correct German, called up and thorough inspection by security.

That family atmosphere that reigned here, the feeling of being among friends, has been sacrificed for the sake of security. Perhaps to the relief of many people in Germany, which has suffered four violent incidents in one week: attack with ax on a train near Wuerzburg, the attacker Munich, attack with a machete in Reutlingen and exploding in the music festival Ansbach. We’ll see if this is a reflection among the public this year at Bayreuth.