Mission Ready Festival

Mission Ready Festival was a Saturday of punk, hardcore and ska, with tents around it, in the south of Germany. Steffen Rose built it. He books the bands and is a co-owner, together with Manfred Hertlein Veranstaltungs GmbH. The first one was Saturday 1 July 2017 at the old American airfield in Giebelstadt, near Würzburg. The file’s site stays, and it still says Flugplatz Giebelstadt. The Saturday the review walks is 29 June 2024, at the Eventzentrum Strohofer, in Geiselwind. These pages show no later one.

Before the gates, Rose tells Ox Fanzine that Wolfgang Thiel found that field. The place is licensed for 15,000 people. For the first year they wanted between 3,000 and 4,000. They did not want metal. They wanted old-school punk, hardcore and ska, on the scale of a Ruhrpott Rodeo of the south, and they agreed the booking with Krach am Bach so they would not collide. A later Ox talk gives 3,000 the first year and more than 6,500 the year before that conversation. If the weather turns impossible, two hangars hold up to 7,000. The ground is asphalt. Rose does not want a bungee jump, a children’s programme or a street of shops. Next to the bands’ merchandise, he names stalls for Sea Shepherd, peta2 and Kein Bock auf Nazis. The 2017 sheet gives the address Hermann-Köhl-Straße 1, 97232 Giebelstadt. The camp opens on Friday 30 June at 13:00, with a party from 20:00, and people have to leave on Sunday 2 July before 12:00. The tent field sits at most 500 metres from the stage, with toilets. The concert grounds open on Saturday at 13:30. There is a bus from Würzburg station. The combo ticket includes a 5-euro rubbish deposit, which they return. They announce 16 bands and two stages. Away from Life names, in that announcement, c.o.p-concerts and Navigator Productions.

setlist.fm notes six dates: 2017, 2018 and 2019, one Saturday each, at the airfield; 2022 and 2023, Friday to Saturday, on the same field; and 29 June 2024, one Saturday, in Geiselwind. 2020 and 2021 are not on that list. Time For Metal calls 2024 the fifth. Mainpost says the airfield held it for four years. The three counts stay side by side. The January note spoke of building works as the reason for leaving Giebelstadt. The July review says the press note spoke of works, and that the move was because of the area protection of a festival in the Bodensee region, because Sum 41 was already playing there and Giebelstadt was too close. Mainpost tells it the same way. The 2024 listing gives Scheinfelder Straße 15-23, 96160 Geiselwind, and speaks of a link to the A3. The ticket the person who went states is 91.50 euros. The January sheet sold that figure with a tent or camper add-on.

Daniel G. and Anja S., in Time For Metal on 4 July 2024, walk that Saturday. The heat was heavy. There was a queue for beer. The two stages sometimes overlapped. Indoors, from 14:00, Melonball. Outdoors, at 14:30, Svetlanas. U.K. Subs: Charlie Harper, at 80, and the song Riot, which the room sang. The Headlines complained about who had ordered the bad weather and said Southside, the week before, had had better temperatures. The magazine notes that there it was rain and mud. Blood Command, with Nikki Brumen, who went out over the crowd. Madball, close to an hour outside. Freddy Cricien was shirtless and passed water. At the same time, indoors, Peter and the Test Tube Babies. Ryker's, from Kassel, closed the outside.

Itchy, from Eislingen, played from 18:10, 45 minutes, and said they had known Sum 41 for 15 years. At 19:15, Agnostic Front. Vinnie Stigma played inside the circle. They closed with Blitzkrieg Bop, by the Ramones. Then Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Fat Mike was on a farewell tour with NOFX, and C.J. Ramone took the bass. They called a boy in the crowd a loser because he did not work. Anja used that gap to watch the football. Sum 41 closed. Deryck Whibley addressed the crowd as ladys and gentlemans. The review says it was the band’s penultimate time in Germany, on a world tour with few shows left, after 27 years. There were boos because they are stopping and cheers for the new record. They played Landmines. They left and came back for Still Waiting. The check-in was simple. The review is glad the main stage was in the hall, because of the heat. About 5,000 people.

In 2017 people slept in the tent field at the airfield, from Friday to Sunday noon. In 2024 the sale sheet offered a tent or a camper as an add-on, and the review does not walk that field. The front page still shows Social Distortion and Death Before Dishonor, and it still names the airfield. Those two bands are not on the Saturday Time For Metal walks. The Saturday it does walk is 29 June 2024, in Geiselwind.