News

With café révolution, the Gurtenfestival decided to award the annual cup donation to an association that sees itself as an answer to the growing need of a broad public to confront sexism, racism and other discriminatory, structurally anchored ways of thinking and acting. The Gurtenfestival shares this need for confrontation and sees in precisely these topics not only an opportunity to provide support, but also to learn as a responsible organizer. The donations collected at the festival will benefit the “Black Futures” project. This is a series of different events and formats (including concerts, readings, open-mic evenings) that take place once a month at the safer space café révolution in Bern.

The fact that the café révolution team felt compelled to cancel the collection campaign because of the very racist ways of thinking and acting that they are fighting against, frustrates and shakes us as organizers and ultimately us as people to the core. In light of the racist incidents, we would like to remind everyone that such incidents will not be tolerated and we have to realize that as a society we are not where we should be.

We want everyone to feel safe at the Gurtenfestival. In order to guarantee this, some non-negotiable principles have to be strictly adhered to at our festival. The crew of the whole festival as well as our visitors are directly requested to report any kind of discrimination during the festival days directly to the festival management via the screens of the main stage as well as via corresponding information boards on the whole area: By WhatsApp (077 258 23 68 – only during the festival days), phone (031 386 10 10) or mail (info@gurtenfestival.ch). This support was always offered and also perceived. Of course, we will take what happened as an opportunity to learn.

Not only do we feel strengthened by the events as a place of connecting music and cultures to continue to work for the “Güsche” to be an inclusive space where everyone is respected, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or other, but we are also strengthened in our motivation to continue to support café révolution in their work. Donations can and should still be made at the redemption points.