Around 5,000 music fans celebrated the first day of the 25th and final edition of SnowpenAir on Saturday, March 23, with Simply Red, Gotthard, and Juraya playing in the snow showers and sunshine on Männlichen, high above the Swiss ski resort towns of Wengen and Grindelwald.
The concert was opened by Swiss rock band Juraya with a stage performance that warmed up the audience. The five musicians from Switzerland played their powerful and melodic music. Gotthard followed with more Swiss rock at its finest.
Simply Red then gave the audience familiar hits including ‘Holding Back the Years’ and ‘If You Don’t Know Me by Now,’ as well as songs from a back catalogue across their forty-year plus career.
The festival fans were entertained with a mix of soul, funk, and reggae, led by lead singer Mick Hucknall. The weather lived up to the name SnowpenAir, with a mix of snow showers and sunshine throughout the day.
Urs Kessler, director of Jungfrau Railways and founder of SnowpenAir, said: “We’re not celebrating the finale, but the 25th anniversary. The long tradition of SnowpenAir ends with a wonderful anniversary and a great festival party.”
According to Urs Kessler, the reasons for the final edition are as follows: “First, after the Corona crisis, the fees have risen again. Thus, such a festival with high-quality artists is almost impossible to realize with a break-even point of around 6000 music enthusiasts. And secondly, in recent years, more and more competing events have emerged.”
Look out for something new next winter in the Jungfrau Ski Region.
