Inside Hurricane Festival 2025
Blue skies, bass drops, and lightning: What more could one want from Scheeßel's annual Hurricane Festival?
This year's run served chaos and excitement all the same; the scorching sun gave way to evacuation orders, tents turned into kiddie pools, and the music thundered louder than the, well, actual thunder rolling through.
THURSDAY: ARRIVAL
Thursday marks the day most people make their way to the festival grounds, taking the extra day to settle in. As tents popped up like mushrooms across the camping sites, the chaos of arrival was in full swing. Picture hundreds of people carrying crates of beer and backpacks twice their size, desperately trying to locate the one square meter of land they'll want to spend the next couple of days on. But spirits? Unbreakable. Even within mere hours of arrival, strangers played games together and had music blasting out of their speakers. Though the festival hadn't officially started, Wild Coast Stage was already being graced by some pre-show acts like Raum27 and Beauty & The Beats, filling the tent up with excited festivalgoers.
FRIDAY: OPENING THE FLOOD GATES
Paris Paloma opened River Stage, drawing the early crowd in with songs like the fruits and as good a reason. Her set built slowly until it all came together with her final number labour. Being her most popular song to date, the audience was able to scream along, receive, and share the emotional message tenfold. At the same time, MOTHICA performed on the Wild Coast Stage, pulling in new and old fans alike, performing songs like VICES and buzzkill.
Across stages, artists like Querbeat, Kate Nash, Big Special, and Thrice performed all sorts of genres. From Punk to Brit-Pop, everybody could find a sound they'd like from the festival's performers.
By 6 pm, DJO pulled us into his kaleidoscopic universe. The visuals accompanying his stage can only be described as a retro-futurist fever dream, bringing some extra excitement to the showcase. The performance itself was as nostalgic as it gets; the synth-heavy production and muffled drums alongside the trippy projections made it a standout performance over the whole festival weekend.
Not even an hour later girl in red hit the stage, and the attendees went absolutely feral. She bantered, she crowd-surfed, she even joined the mosh pit. The set felt so electric, and it's always a breath of fresh air to watch an artist so grounded and so excited about performing.
And finally, at 11 pm, fan favorite AnnenMayKantereit made their appearance, followed shortly by Alligatoah. AnnenMayKantereit's gravelly vocals, raw lyricism, and timeless tracks like Pocahontas transformed the crowd into one massive choir. You could hear the chorus echoing all the way back to the tents. Alligatoah successfully closed night one, playing songs that many people in the audience grew up on and know all too well, like Willst du.
SATURDAY: PACKED AND POWERFUL
On Saturday, The Murder Capital tore through their set with unrelenting force. 070 Shake was all pulse and mood, DOLTAN delivered with heavy intensity, and Wet Leg brought their signature weird-pop charm that had everyone dancing like it was 2010 again.
Zartmann's stage seemed to have pulled in an audience a little bigger than initially anticipated by the organizers. Though he was one of many artists to perform on the Mountain Stage, his case in particular was branded by the sheer number of people trying to get to barricade, the intense heat that day, and the frankly slightly overwhelmed security staff. The situation was only partially sorted a good few minutes into the set, allowing a few more people to enjoy songs like tau mich auf and wunderschön as they were intended, without having to worry about where their elbow might land next.
The night’s triple finish: Sam Fender, 01099, and Apache 207 was pure serotonin. Fender’s anthems felt like communal therapy, 01099 gave us a mixture of Hip Hop, Rap parts, and electro beats. Apache turned the night into a sweaty, euphoric club session under open skies.
SUNDAY: HURRICANE, FOR REAL THIS TIME
Sunday was the hottest day of the weekend at 30°C. No breeze, just sunscreen in everyone’s eyes. Still, the German wave that day was strong: Ikkimel, Berq, Jeremias, Nina Chuba, Jan Böhmermann, and SDP brought the local flavor with both heart and heat.
Tom Odell, a last-minute addition, provided a much-needed breather on the Forest Stage. The calm before the literal storm.
At 9 pm, just as SDP got the party going, phones buzzed with evacuation notices. Ironically, a storm was rolling in, and Hurricane wasn’t quite ready for a hurricane. Thousands were told to take shelter in their cars, the mood shifting from festival to flash flood drill.
But by 11 pm, the sky cleared, the ground still squelched underfoot, and SDP made their return to stage.
Green Day's set had also been moved back to accommodate the emergency situation. Billie Joe and co. delivered a tight 90-minute set that felt like a reward for those who endured the chaos. Only ending at 1:30 am, but not after most of the festival ground had been filled with fans, old and young, screaming along to classics like American Idiot and Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Hurricane Festival 2025 was truly a lesson in contrast: musically epic moments sliced by lightning bolts and the occasional slight logistical hiccup. But it isn't really about polished perfection; it's about dancing in the rain and sliding in the mud, it's about screaming your favorite lyrics alongside strangers, and maybe even getting hit in the face with a flying cup of warm beer mid-chorus.
See you in 2026!
(Just... don't forget your raincoat.)
WRITTEN BY
Kira
As a little girl, my biggest dream was to stand on a stage and share my songs with people who can relate. It turns out that that’s a lot harder than it seemed. Still, there is a similarly electric feeling in the crowd, spending the better half of the evening with like-minded people. People who you might not know or ever see again, that don’t seem so much like strangers for those few hours you spend with an artist, their fans, and the music. To me, the capacity of music to make fans connect despite who they are is the most intriguing and inspiring phenomenon of all, and my hope is to share it with people as best I can.
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