The Hurricane Festival, also just Hurricane, is a music festival that has taken place at the Eichenring, a speedway race track, in Scheeßel, Germany, since 1997. With more than 80,000 attendees (2022) it is one of the largest music festivals in Germany. Southside Festival, often referred to as Hurricane's "sister" festival, takes place on the same three days and has largely the same line-up. Alongside Southside Festival, Hurricane festival is organised by FKP Konzertproduktionen, MCT Agentur and KoKo Konstanz and takes place every June. Like many other large festivals Hurricane Festival plays a mix of rock, alternative, pop and electro music from established as well as emerging artists. Arrival begins at midday on the Thursday. History The 1973 and 1977 festivals The first festival in Scheeßel took place on 8 and 9 September 1973 and was called "Es rockt in der Heide" (English: It's rocking in the heath). The festival hosted many of the big names in rock music at the time (Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chicago, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Lou Reed) and carried on through Monday night thanks to the enthusiasm of the bands. The 1977 festival, this time called First Rider Open Air, which took place on 3 and 4 September incurred damage costs of 1.5 Million when the organiser who realised during the planning stages that it wouldn't be possible to pay the bands, ran off with the rest of the money. The name "First Rider Open Air" is a reference to the packaging for Rider in Blue Jeans rolling tobacco which was new at the time. The Dutch tobacco manufacturer Douwe Egberts sponsored the festival DM140.000 under the condition that the name of the tobacco was used. Some of the bands that had been announced including Nektar and The Byrds did not even arrive in Scheeßel in some cases it was because the payment of travel expenses had not been ensured and in other cases it was due to the fact the extremely inexperienced event organiser (a 25 year old bank clerk) had already paid in advance some bands in full who then did not turn up at all. Dutch band Long Tall Ernie & The Shakers opened on the first night which then ended with Golden Earring playing their song Radar Love. Hells Angels who were hired as stewards collectively abandoned their duties due to a lack of payment. After a while the