Wacken Stories: Conny Kraus

Almost 30 years of W:O:A lead to many, many great stories – crazy, heart-warming, revealing, or just plain funny. To collect those stories, we have talked to the people that live, work or party around the „Wacken Holy Ground“. Their experience illustrate the festival’s extraordinary spirit, so have fun with special anecdotes which you won’t find everywhere else: Here are the „Wacken Stories“!

Conny Kraus (Wacken resident, front garden landlord, Metalhead mom)

„We made many new friends throughout the years“

Conny Kraus has been living in Wacken since 1982. She’s looking forward to the festival every year and doesn’t leave little headbangers out in the rain. And then there was that thing with the sex doll…

„In 2008, on the Sunday after the festival, two boys from Norway knocked on our door. They were soaking wet and looked very unhappy. The must’ve been only 16 years old. Their parents were supposed to come from Berlin to Wacken to pick them up, but they were late. So I asked the guys into the house, let them use our shower and made them some hot tea and a bite to eat. We offered them to put up their tent in our garden. And since then we met almost every year! They usually park their van in our driveway, and during one of their last visits they brought a troll figure from Norway that will protect me. That was very sweet.

We met so many people from all over the world through the festival! In 2006 we started to have a bar in our yard. We ran it ourselves in the beginning, now we rent it out. It’s not always easy, of course, having so many people pass your door every day and party in your garden. But we’re still looking forward to the festival every time. We made many new friends throughout the years! My husband has some health problems, but the Wacken Open Air always gives him a big push. To be honest: We are always happy to have made it through another year so life becomes nice and quiet again. For three months, we don’t even talk about the festival. But sooner or later we really start looking forward to the next edition, this year we couldn’t hardly wait.“

Bonus story:

„One year a drunk Bavarian come to the house – with a limp plastic sex doll hanging over his arm. It had one hole too many, so he couldn’t inflate it anymore. I wasn’t in the greatest of moods that day, but offered him to put the doll in the bathtub to find the leak. Bad idea: I had to disinfect the tub for three days because the Bavarian hadn’t told me that he was actually using that thing. But I found the leak: It seems that the guy, in the throes of passion, bit his sex doll in the nose.“

Conny’s wish for the 30th W:O:A:

„The Bee Gees“.

Ann G. Jung