Despite It’s Odd Name, Annual Event On Lake Lucerne Attracts 100,000 People
It definitely loses something in the translation.
Lucerne, Switzerland has a music festival featuring jazz, soul and rock, a total of 100 performances during an entire week in the middle of summer (July 20-28 in 2018). It’s takes place along the shore of Lake Lucerne and part of it is held in an open-air pavilion.
Past performers have included UB40, BB King, Van Morrison and Bonny Raitt. Even Billy Idol. This year’s event has less names you’ll recognize – Charles Bradley, Air, Corrine Bailey Ray – but often that’s not the point of festivals. It’s as much about the atmosphere as the artists. And it does have Seal.
The oddly-named Blue Balls Festival attracts 100,000 people, making it one of the largest music festivals of the German-speaking part of the country, Switzerland’s version of New Orleans JazzFest.
The music features blues, jazz, soul, funk, world, rock and pop, paired with photography, street art, video, film and talks. What makes it unique is the atmosphere around the bay in Lucerne, the Open-Air Pavilion, the KKL Luzern and the Hotel Schweizerhof with its late-night shows.
Beer and alcohol is served, of course, and in Switzerland you can drink in public and on the streets.
This all sounds like a great time in an idyllic setting. There’s little doubt it is, too.
But the name, well, it could send American males running off in the other direction.
It’s called the Blue Balls Festival – I’m not making that up – and there’s even a Blue Balls Club! Try as I might, I cannot figure out why they use that name. Perhaps the theme is blue and there’s a number of festive balls of that color at the festival.
In America, of course, blue balls means something entirely different. Let’s just say a rocking music festival does comes to mind.
Well, if you can get over the name and want to go – perhaps just refer to it simply as the Blue Festival – here’s the event’s official website: www.blueballs.ch.
Tickets are 50-175 CHF.
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