Sadgoth's Guide to Wave gotik treffen / leipzig 

This is the main venue for Wave Gotik Treffen, the site is huge and offers just about everything you could ever want from a Goth Festival. The biggest bands will play here in Halle 2, the Campsite is located here as is a huge Gothic shopping market and there is enough food being served to allow you to eat from a different stall each day. The Agra Messepark is Leipzig's old exhibition Centre. Its not a pretty site, being made up out of a number of very large metal warehouse/hanger buildings and some older brick buildings probably dating from the early communist era. There is also a large grassed area that is used as the campsite during the festival. At other times the Messepark is used as a Agricultural Exhibition Centre, a Flower market, a Heavy Plant exhibition, a Dog Show and various other exhibitions and shows.

 

ARRIVING AT THE AGRA MESSEPARK
If you come by tram then you will be dropped off right outside the Agra (you will know this as the tram will empty). When you enter you will pass through a security area, they will want to check your bag for drink and food (if you’re camping you will be OK just so long as you have the right colour wristband). Once through just follow the crowd forward. The first building to your left is where you are heading, this is Halle 1 and the Shopping Halle.

 

HALLE 1 - SHOPPING
The first building is where you will find the a huge Gothic Market (imagine a large supermarket sized building full of Goth clothes, music, jewellery, and people all dressed up wandering around). Your shopping experience will only be curtailed by your money limits and the weight of your luggage (always a good thing to remember if you are already at your weight limit). However you will find so many stalls that it will probably take you a few days to get around them all. You can enjoy the food café between Halle 1 and Halle 2, else head outside for food and drink, where you will find just about every food kind on sale.The Shopping Halle is open from 12noon on Friday till about 1am (the same for Saturday and Sunday) the Shopping Halle will close earlier on Monday at about 9-10ish...

 

BETWEEN HALLE 1 and 2
If you walk past all the stores heading towards Halle 2 you will come to the area between the Halles. You will find a permanent café here, toilets (a long queue) and normally a large amount of Goths sitting on the floor in various states of consciousness. If you are walking out of Halle 1 then right in front of you, you will see a large doorway leading to Halle 2 and the main Band stage. Don't even try to get through here (security wont let you through), its not allowed, the flow of people is from the other side of Halle 2.

 

HALLE 2 - MAIN BAND STAGE
From the area between the Halles you can see the Main Stage through two large doors, security won’t let you pass, you will need to walk around the building and enter from the other side. Walk outside past the food stalls and turn left, follow the building around. You will find security gates and a large amount of security staff; they will want to check you for food/drink, cameras and weapons. A full pat down is not uncommon and they will check your bag quite well. Once through you are at the main stage, to your right is the stage, and to your left are the bars (toilets can be found towards the middle of the left hand side. All the biggest/best bands will play on this stage, the headlining act normally come on at 10-11pm with another smaller group playing a Midnight special.

 

If the weather is hot then this Halle is going to get very hot as the evening progresses. If you want to see a headlining act then you will need to be here at least one band before them, preferably two bands. For 2008 there was a major improvement, the area between the two sets of doors (on the opposite side of the Halle from the stage) are now connected, with a large area outside where you will find the toilets, room to smoke and a small bar. This is an excellent area to grab some fresh air between bands (apart from the smokers puffing away) and is now a great way of getting from one end of the Halle to the other when its really packed.

 

My tip for the best experience is to get here early and get yourself between the two large metal pillars that dominate the stage area preferably towards the left hand of the stage (its less packed). Ensure you don’t need to leave, if you leave the Halle you will need to go right around the outside of the building again, this has been known to take 30-40 minutes once bands start playing. Eat before coming in, there are a couple food stalls, but they don’t sell the best food. Be prepared for a large number of people, and if the headlining band has started playing and you are still outside then I would advise finding something else to do (even if you get in, it will be hard to get into a good place to see the band).

Band Merchandise will be on sale at the far side of the Halle from where you enter.

 

HALLE 4.1
If you have just come out of Halle 1 into the area between the Halle's you can turn left and walk into a largish student union type of bar. This is Halle 4.1. This room has a couple of bars and seating (look for seating upstairs too). Bands can sometimes play in this very pleasant room. Toilets are also based in this room to the left, and are normally more empty that the ones between the Halle's. There is normally a stall selling simple food, and some sort of art exhibition on the floor above (opposite the upstairs bar area).

 

HALLE 4.2
If you continue to walk towards the back of room Halle 4.1 from where you walked in, you will find in each corner a half hidden doorway. You will find a security guy standing here and he will perform the normal search of your bag, once past you will find yourself in Halle 4.2. This room is very large, some years there will be bands playing in this room, normally from the evening onwards till very late. The sound quality is normally very good and its quite easy to see the band from most of the room. When the bands have finished the centre of the room becomes a dance floor  where some of the worlds best Goth DJs will be playing every night until the very early hours. If you like to dance but have found it hard to dance in other venues then I suggest heading here, the dance floor is huge and you will always find space, although the venue has no atmosphere in comparison to the Moritzbastei or Darkflower.

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EATING AND DRINKING AT THE AGRA - OUTSIDE
So you need to stop and eat at some stage, head outside and you will find that there are a large amount of stalls selling various different food types. You will find stalls selling sweets, burgers, hot dogs, pizza, Chinese, Indian, vegetarian and pasta. Personally I always eat here and have always found the food to be excellent quality (for festival food that is). There are a couple of stalls also selling beer and other drinks here. Seating can be hard to find, make sure you sit at the stall you buy food from or go and sit on the near by wall (or grass if the weather is OK).

 

CASH POINT
So you need some more cash, you should find a mobile cash unit outside with the food stalls, there are 4 cash machines (with English as an option)

 

KINDERGARTEN
If you have kids and want a couple of hours rest then you can ask the on-site Kindergarten to look after them. I have no details of how much it may cost, or if they talk any English. However the site of the Kindergarten looks fine, there are some outside play things and from the outside the place looks very much like a school classroom. If you want to find the Kindergarten walk past the entrance to Halle 2 and the Kindergarten is about 100m on your left. I believe you can deposit your child at the Kindergarten for up to 3 hours per day any time from 3pm to 22pm, your kids can play with playfellows of the same age, paint or do handicrafts. Drinks are provided but not food.

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AGRA MAP

Here you will find a rough layout map of the Agra together with main headings for each location including Halle 1 and 2, 4.1, 4.2 food and camping areas. NOTE: The camping areas are segregated from the rest of the Agra with large fencing panels, there are numerous gates and each has a security guard, you will need a camping wristband to enter the camping ground. 

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To get from the Agra to the Pagan Village (also know as Heidnisches Dorf / Torhaus Dölitz) you will need to walk back out to the Trams, up the road and around (unless you are camping, in which case you can cut across the  camp ground)

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There are also lockers outside Halle 2 band entrance, and you will also find a First Aid station and Police here