The ‘pre-opening’ of the Factory will mark the climax of this year’s Tech Open Air festival as one of more than 50 satellite events at six partner locations. Construction is still under way on Berlin’s much-hyped new startup hub but it will make use of the good weather and the TOA crowds to open its doors to the public yet again.
It’s the second time around for TOA, and this year will follow the same pattern as the 2012 edition. The first day, August 1, will see a conference at Kater Holzig under the title ‘Reset tomorrow!’ with speakers including Ijad Madisch of ResearchGate, Morton Kringelbach, a professor of neuroscience at Oxford, German Pirate Party leader Bernd Schlömer and entrepreneur and investor Stefan Glänzer.
On August 2, attention will shift to the satellite events. Hosts include Axel Springer, the Max Planck Gallery, GoEuro and Index Ventures, with the Amano, Sankt Oberholz and betahaus amongst the featured venues.
But most attention will be on the Factory, where construction work on a former brewery adjacent to the former Berlin Wall death strip has been going on for the past 11 months. The project has made a splash internationally, and SoundCloud, Mozilla, Zendesk and 6Wunderkinder are amongst the companies which will move in later this year.
The venue will host the closing party in the evening as a ‘pre-opening’ event, before which there will be a summer fair in the Factory garden at Brunnenstrasse 141.
TOA is expected to attract more than 2,000 people in all, and founder Niko Woischnik said: “We are thrilled to have such prestigious partners from diverse industries working with us on the Tech Open Air Festival this year.”