TFELD. A New Festival on the Runway

Tempelhof Airport carries a double history: once the hub of the Berlin Airlift, today a decommissioned runway in the middle of the city. On August 22, 2026, the site turned for one day into the backdrop for TFELD, a new festival format under the motto "This is Berlin". Up to 25,000 visitors were expected. Thick cloud banks moved across the runway through the day, broken again and again by the sun, while the first crowds gathered in the afternoon in front of the listed terminal building with its control tower.

The program ran from 1pm to 10pm across four stages: a hip-hop mainstage, an electronic mainstage and two underground stages modeled on the Backyard Stage of the splash! Festival and the Autoscooter Stage of MELT Festival. The lineup included Paul Kalkbrenner live, Pashanim, Marlon Hoffstadt, Ellen Allien, AK Ausserkontrolle, Baby B3ns as well as Lucio101 & Nizi19 and southstar, plus an unannounced secret headliner. After the stage program, an aftershow party followed in the hangar with a rebuild of Club Watergate. Beyond the music there was an extensive side program with a fairground in the style of Hasenheide park, a basketball court, flea market areas and oversized replicas of Berlin landmarks, spread across the wide grounds. Ticket prices were deliberately kept low, a festival ticket cost 69 euros for the first fourteen days, a combined ticket including the aftershow 89 euros.

At the edge of the grounds, between the stages, stood a historic "Troop Carrier" propeller plane, fenced off with barriers on which someone had sprayed "PARADE" in large letters. The organizer's press materials note that hip-hop and techno historically found their way to Berlin through this very site, and that doubling became visible in the afternoon: the massive aircraft as a silent witness to the airlift, in front of it visitors in streetwear passing an inflatable sphere installation, the first bass lines of the stages audible in the background. A place that once connected Berlin to the world carried, for one day, a much younger and louder Berlin. The period of observation ran from early afternoon into the beginning blue hour, the night program in the hangar remained outside its scope.