Feature photo: Snapshot of a meeting place in Europe
It will soon be that time again in Heilbronn, and a 100 square meter stage and around 16 stands will be set up on Kiliansplatz. This year, the European Meeting Point will take place on the European Union's Europe Day, on Saturday 9 May 2020.
At the end of last year, preparations for what is now the 31st meeting point Europe have started again and the first pegs will then be driven in at the first preparatory meeting on Saturday, January 18, 2020, which will be followed by another meeting, usually in March, before then make all the preparations during the Europe Week noticeable on Kiliansplatz.
The Meeting point Europe is a festival of international understanding, which is organized every year by the EUROPA-UNION Heilbronn and, with the help of its partner associations from the city and district of Heilbronn, offers a motley potpourri of art and music all day long, which also features the best cuisine from all over the world is garnished.
If you are now a little curious, you are welcome to find a few amateur recordings of the last meeting places on YouTube; I have a corresponding "Playlist“ created.
The very special thing about the meeting point Europe is that the entire festival is managed exclusively by volunteers from Heilbronn, who prepare for this day for months, spend days setting up and dismantling and then at the meeting point itself, from morning until night standing in the kitchen, stocking the stands, looking after the stand duty or taking part in the colorful program on the stage.
A Meeting Point Europe can offer up to 12 hours of non-stop programming, while up to 20 stalls offer the best delicacies far and wide for all visitors.
None of this would be possible without the hundreds of volunteers, cooks and artists who do this every year to show their fellow citizens that on the one hand we can achieve more together than alone and on the other hand that peaceful coexistence is the best way of life for us people is.
Of course one is needed Party, which counts a good 20 enthusiastic visitors every year, with other helpers and supporters in the background. This help comes from the partner companies of EUROPA-UNION Heilbronn, as well as from the city of Heilbronn itself, which supports the festival financially and actively with employees of the works office.
For over 30 years, the festival has gone on in harmony and in high spirits, even if it rains cats and dogs all day long.
If you have never had the opportunity to drop by the Meeting Point Europe, please put May 9, 2020 in your calendar now.
"Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as we love all other lands."
William Lloyd Garrison, Declaration of Sentiments adopted by the Peace Convention (Boston, September 18-20, 1838)
