by sisi plzen

Tons of new photos were added to the 2011 gallery. Thanks to Alexey & Shafiga. Enjoy!

View all photos - View as Slideshow

View all photos - View as Slideshow

Hello my dear Transylvania Callers, groovers, artists, performers, volunteers and teams.

I’m very sorry to come so late with this statement. I simply was too emotionally affected after all this and it took me a while to recover…

Firstly, I want to say sorry for the logistical and organisational f… ups and problems we had at this year’s edition. Surely, many mistakes have been made and the weather change followed by a high number of other incidents caused by the rain gave us the rest and made it impossible to start as planned and even to keep on schedule. We are really sorry for the delays and technical problems that arose from that.  Sorry for the food situation, tough it would have been possible to start in time even with the rain, but the sound system was connected wrong and that caused one more day of delay. The party went on in the chill out that night, which we thought to be much safer in that weather conditions.

The next day started and we also made one day extra to please the people…

A lot of funds have been directed to professional teams we thought to be doing their jobs, but it seems like everybody this time underestimated the power of nature (all that you whish to do there takes two times as much energy), and tough everyone gave the best they could, it lacked on all ends… We were quite late anyway because of the approval of coming at the location with only three weeks in advance

As soon as the Gates opened and the people started to come, the fog and mist came down on us and also of course some serious rain. Chaos was on the roll.. Everything seemed to go down..  The Mountain insisted on a Tribute by testing our fears and how well are we all prepared for this adventure? Certainly we hope for this not to happen but it did and it probably did so for a reason. But everything got from funny to serious and actually many things did not turn out not the way we actually intended and planned them.. The situation seemed hopeless at first, but one by one we took the problems by its roots and got the show running as good as we could…

After the sun came back, it put a smile on everybody’s face and suddenly all the sad faces turned into smiling magical beings gathering all their powers to accept the moment and do the best out of the situation. I think and I appreciate very much the fact that many of our callers noticed the problems but kind of also realised what it means to pull off something of this in the middle of f… nowhere at 1800 meters altitude. With the sun out, me and the core team tried to approach all problems and help the people wherever we could.. This took also extra time and also kind of influenced other parts of the plans and so on..

In the end, believe me,  it was pure horror for me, but I knew I have to stand my men till the end and that’s what I did.. Even after all the people left, I was there with Blumen Kraft and Alex Varodi to make sure all the trash is getting off the mountain again.

Hearts were broken, new ones won. I’m really sorry if you hadn’t had a good time because of any incidents that we were responsible for. I feel that some of you want to know more details and so i will try and explain some of the problems we had in this year’s edition of the gathering.

To begin with, the decision of the place… It was like a rollercoaster till we knew where it will  be.  Initially, the plan was to do it again one last time at the old location of 2007 and 2009 and we were pretty sure this won’t be a problem. But the festival turned out not to be accepted by the local council, so the desperate search began for a new location. Knowing most of the mountains around Sibiu County, I knew this is not going to be easy if we want to stay in the Sibiu region. So i was looking in Brasov County also for potential locations and spotted 2 nice ones: one with very good access and one with very bad access. So my mind was with the very accessible and safe at 800 m close to town location which is also the new location for 2012 (contract already signed with the forest administration). But somehow afraid of the maybe being “too” close to town which could bring its own problems in the game.  Anyway my attention was brought to the area so called Valea Frumoasei already in 2004 but back then was really bad access (yes, even worse ) and so I forgot about it.. If you had a good look at the valley on the way to this years location, I think you could see the beauty all around and some nice places that are near water streams, really nice and perfect looking for what we wanted to do, but we found out all this places are wetlands and quite dangerous to do anything there without doing some serious landscape designing first.

So, i dreamed of doing it there somehow but could not find a dry place close enough to water stream.. (You can’t have it all) .. And then, a friend and Mountain Ranger pointed me to this location high up with this incredible view and yet still accessible with great care if there’s no rain or mud.  In case of rain anywhere it is tough till its over and dry again.. Anyway.. This area got connected trough the Transalpine Motorway that was and is still currently in construction and we could drive there more nicely now but had to make a huge detour.. The short and bad road was 60 km from Sibiu and the long, but safer, way was 111 km far.

So, when we first visited this location and I realised how special it is and how close to God and all the elements it is (indeed, a very spiritual place), I instantly knew that the Festival had to be here.. I was aware it will be harder and more expensive than at Rasnov at the 2012 easy access location…but somehow I was also thinking “what the heck, since when did we mean to have it the easy way?” and I was rather keen to do something totally crazy than easy. But never expected so many things to go wrong in such a short time.. We realised we won’t get the permissions in time as we planned and already thought of switching again back to the Rasnov backup location.. So we where blocked in many ways to actually start planning it right. Because in the end we got the location only with three weeks before the event.. Making it very hard and almost impossible to finish it all in time with the resources we had and at the standard we intended initially.

Starting with the base camp and some works there, all kind of other problems appeared.. And we realised that up there, at 1800 m, we felt physically really tired quite fast and consumption of anything was double as in normal conditions. The transport routes took a long time to do and we had a lot to transport… Communication was not possible up there. In a way we liked that too, but still we tried, and failed, to install any useful device due to little time available.

The forest administration promised to help us fix the road and we thought we are going to put some rocks as well, just in case it rains. This never happened, as they insisted in the end that placing small rocks wont help cause they get spilled away fast by the rain. And in that case, if it rained, they suggested the people should simply park along the side road and that’s it.. They did fix the road with a bulldozer and made it partially wider and better cause it was even worse before.. I just hoped that we will be lucky and it will not rain but heavy rain came and it got really cold and some people where not prepared as they where asked to  on the website, so we had a lot of problems  getting things up there even before the rain. like the generator who arrived few days too late and actually everything and everyone arrived later then planned or expected. The generator got dropped down the hill instead of brought up hill as discussed with the provider.. It took 3 days to find a truck able and willing to bring that monster of 500 KW up between the main stage and the markets. That was supposed to light up all the location and provide electricity for all the stages and markets.. I could talk here further in all the details but it would end up being a book i think ) if there is anything that i forgot to mention and you want it cleared dont hesitate to ask and you will be answered! Namaskar

Hans Reiner Reisenauer (Styx.Dj)

See www.transylvania-calling.com/location-travel/shuttle-buses/ for details about shuttle buses to and from the TC location (from Paltinis, Sebes, Sibiu, Bucharest, Cluj, Targu Mures, OZORA)

The time tables are here: www.transylvania-calling.com/line-up/

You can also download them as PDF: Main Stage - Chillout Stage or go to each artist’s profile page to find out exactly when / where they’re playing

There will be a permanent shuttle service with all kind of dirt-road suitable vehicles from Paltinis (near Sibiu) to TC Location (30km) for 25 Lei / 6 EUR

You can get to Paltinis from Sibiu by public bus service of Transmixt  (from the Central Station / Bus Station, price is 9 Lei / 2,50 EUR).

See www.transylvania-calling.com/location-travel/shuttle-buses/ for time tables.

The ticket pre-sale phase is now over.

Starting with today you will only be able to get tickets for Transylvania Calling 2011 at the gates. The price is 100 EUR.

See you on the dance floor!

Only 4.5 hours left to get your pre-sale TC ticket for 80€. The price @ the gate is 100€.