Sting will play an open-air concert at Belval on 30 June. Eric Ryan Anderson

Sting will play an open-air concert at Belval on 30 June. Eric Ryan Anderson

Moments after the Rockhal announced that Sting would be playing an open-air concert in Belval, opposite the venue, on 30 June, den Atelier has issued a statement regarding the clash of date with its Siren’s Call festival. Siren’s Call at Neimënster features Eels and MGMT as headliners as well as a host of lesser known and Luxembourg artists, including a new performance of Pascal Schumacher’s “Drops & Points”.

The Hollerich venue says that its new festival, now in its second edition, is a calling card for Luxembourg and has the support of the city and the ministry of the economy’s Nation Branding project.

While congratulating the Rockhal on landing another Sting concert (he played the Rockhal in April 2017), den Atelier suggests that holding the open-air show on the same day as Siren’s Call goes against an unwritten agreement that it never programmes major shows to clash with other high value cultural or historic events:

“That is why we have never organized concerts that compete in scheduling with events such as the Rock Um Knuedler (organised by the City of Luxembourg), the Fête de la musique (organised by City of Dudelange) and the Sonic Visions festival (organised by Rockhal), to name but a few.”

Indeed, den Atelier goes so far as to say that the Rockhal, which is largely publically funded, has placed Siren’s Call in peril.