celeb news Gelsenkirchen 🇩🇪 renames itself to "Swiftkirchen" in honor of 3 sold-out Eras shows

[Feanor]

 

From the linked article (translated):

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The city of Gelsenkirchen is looking forward to US mega-star Taylor Swift and the tens of thousands of Swifties expected to attend the three concerts in the arena from 17 to 19 July. The first visible sign is the "renaming" of Gelsenkirchen to "Swiftkirchen". 

 

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Since not everyone has gotten a ticket for one of the three shows, but might still want to be close to the artist, there will be a big open-air Taylor Swift party. With the support of the city […] Heinrich-König-Platz (pictured above) will be transformed into "Taylor Town" from 17 to 19 July with a whole host of activities (swap meet, karaoke, tattoos) all about the star.

 

 

Taylor Swift is set to perform 3 sold-out shows in the city's VELTINS-Arena (Capacity: Up to 70,000).

She'll become only the 2nd female artist ever to perform at this German stadium (after P!nk) and only the 2nd artist overall with 3 back-to-back shows (after Ed Sheeran).

 

 

[kellebrity98]

gelsenkirschen is such a small city tho, literally i never heard about it before taylor

[Mandalore]

1 minute ago, kellebrity98 said:

gelsenkirschen is such a small city tho, literally i never heard about it before taylor

I've been to Germany many times and I had to google it 

[Rider]

11 minutes ago, Mandalore said:

I've been to Germany many times and I had to google it 

  I live  here and  never heard of it  

[DUA LIPA]

1 minute ago, Rider said:

  I live  here and  never heard of it  

i always confuse Leverkusen and Gelsenkirchen, almost booked a train to the wrong city this time 

[Breakdown]

16 minutes ago, kellebrity98 said:

gelsenkirschen is such a small city tho, literally i never heard about it before taylor

no it isn't, it's a city known by everyone in germany and certainly not small for our standards, it's literally part of the most populous area of germany, the ruhrgebiet. it has a very bad reputation though.

[Mandalore]

1 minute ago, Breakdown said:

no it isn't, it's a city known by everyone in germany and certainly not small for our standards, it's literally part of the most populous area of germany, the ruhrgebiet. it has a very bad reputation though.

Can you elaborate? 

[DestroyAndSmile]

"She'll become only the 2nd female artist ever to perform at this German stadium (after P!nk) and only the 2nd artist overall with 3 back-to-back shows (after Ed Sheeran)." 

 

The erasure of German artists.

[Breakdown]

8 minutes ago, Mandalore said:

Can you elaborate? 

It's the hometown of Schalke 04, the football/soccer club. While everyone knows how these fans act, Schalke fans have an especially bad reputation for their behavior, also since their biggest rivals BVB are basically next town.

Besides that Gelsenkirchen has one of the highest poverty rates / lowest income rates compared to the rest of Germany and is known within the country for being plain ugly. No one wants to willingly live there. People joke about it.

The Ruhrgebiet in general is very ugly, too many people and too many ugly big cities in a small space.

Traveling through the Ruhrgebiet with public transport is also something I wouldn't recommend, especially not at night, but I will do it again for Ms Taylor

Edited Tuesday at 07:46 PM by Breakdown

[GuyNextDoor]

I still don't know why she booked shows in that ugly city when Berlin or Düsseldorf were right there 

 

[Mandalore]

2 minutes ago, Breakdown said:

It's the hometown of Schalke 04, the football/soccer club. While everyone knows how these fans act, Schalke fans have an especially bad reputation for their behavior, also since their biggest rivals BVB are basically next town.

Besides that Gelsenkirchen has one of the highest poverty rates / lowest income rates compared to the rest of Germany and is known within the country for being plain ugly. No one wants to willingly live there. People joke about it.

The Ruhrgebiet in general is very ugly, too many people and too many ugly big cities in a small space.

Traveling through the Ruhrgebiet with public transport is also something I wouldn't recommend, especially not at night, but I will do it again for Ms Taylor

Thanks! Hopefully the town deploys all the security it can afford because there's going to be a lot of women/young girls using public transports at night after the concerts. 

[abrantino]

34 minutes ago, Mandalore said:

Can you elaborate? 

It's similar to the Rust belt or the former industrial hubs in northern England...lots of people moved there during the Industrial Revolution because of coal mining/steel industry/etc.

After deindustrialization this left many people unemployed or living in poverty.

This is also why all the cities in that area are all ugly af..Bochum, Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen, etc..all former centers of heavy industry.

 

[Lil' Oz]

I'm from NRW and Gelsenkirchen is definitely a known and (somewhat) big city… at least for us 

[Alongoria13]

I'm curious why this city has gotten many tour stops lately compared to other major German cities.

[Gui Blackout]

59 minutes ago, GuyNextDoor said:

I still don't know why she booked shows in that ugly city when Berlin or Düsseldorf were right there 

 

 

3 minutes ago, Alongoria13 said:

I'm curious why this city has gotten many tour stops lately compared to other major German cities.

Probably because of the Euros?

[Princess Aurora]

Cute idea. 

[Kristie Kuwa]

Gott ich könnte kotzen

[NI-CK]

I grew up in the town next to Gelsenkirchen and most people know the city for the football team and their stadium (where Taylor is gonna play) but also for being the poorest city in Germany, with the lowest average income, highest unemployment rate and child poverty in the country. The stadium can host more people for concerts than the ones in Cologne and in Düsseldorf that's why it's a popular choice for big artists.

 

The city is currently hosting many games of the European Football Championship at the stadium and they're trying hard to make money from that and promote the city as a touristic destination. I can understand their desperation to allow this name change.

 

I'm pretty sure international Swifties are gonna have a big culture shock strolling around the city and using the public transport. I believe Taylor is gonna stay at a hotel somewhere else  and not spend the night there 

 

German media was furious about this recently:

 

https://twitter.com/PaulBrown_UK/status/1801887324629864751

 

 

[diemoehre]

Didn't a lot of cities do this already? 

Anyway, can't wait to go on N1 although I agree that it's not a nice city at all.

[FlyOnTheWall]

It'll be my first time in Gelsenkirchen and I'm bracing myself for the worst if Duisburg and Oberhausen are anything to go by  I do think the Ruhrgebiet does have some nice spots with Essen and Dortmund though imo 

 

Also hope the Euro and Taylor give some nice economic boost to the area, God knows it needs it nnnn;

Edited Tuesday at 10:40 PM by FlyOnTheWall

[wastedpotential]

I'd never heard of it before either, but it's right in the middle of Duisburg, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, and Essen, and Cologne is pretty close too, so it's quite centrally located amongst several large cities

[campelo]

It will be funny 80k people going to the central station after the concert, this terrible city has also terrible connections. Good luck to all 

[Outlaws]

[West Coast]

Come on global domination

 

[katara]

Gelsenkirchen is a TERRIBLE delipidated city full of asocial teenager boy gangs and terrible connections to to other cities.

 

Good luck to the mostly white female swifties