Between a curated dream festival and self-exploitation.
At the age of 16, he held his first festival in his home town of Odenwald, played hundreds of shows with his own band and later as bassist for Get Well Soon. At the same time, Timo Kumpf remained loyal to the live industry, organizing concerts in the Rhine-Neckar area - even when he later moved to Berlin.
In 2011 he fulfilled his dream of the Maifeld Derby in Mannheim, to which he has since set the highest standards in terms of culture and his own curation. In 2017, the music magazine INTRO named it the second best festival in Germany. In order to finance it, the founder and managing director of Delta Konzerte set up the commercially oriented Rhein-Neckar tent festival.
In the Redfield Podcast, Timo Kumpf reports on his journey, which took him on and behind so many stages. Rarely with a real plan, but always with a lot of passion and focus.
In 2019, Kumpf described this willingness to sacrifice as self-exploitation and decided to pause the annual Maifeld Derby next year. When the corona pandemic completely paralyzed the live business, it was an almost clairvoyant decision. For him, however, it was a much-needed break a year earlier; best presented in the documentary “Of Ponies and Dollars”.
In an interview with Alexander Schröder, Kumpf reports on this time, makes it clear what he thinks the cultural sector is like and what hurdles have to be overcome again and again.
www.maifeld-derby.de
www.delta-konzerte.de