A popular Swiss open air festival has promised revellers that they will get a full refund if the event is marred by rain.

 

"/> A popular Swiss open air festival has promised revellers that they will get a full refund if the event is marred by rain.

 

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OFFBEAT

Pop festival offers money back for bad weather

 

A popular Swiss open air festival has promised revellers that they will get a full refund if the event is marred by rain.

 

Published: 6 May 2011 09:17 CEST

The Open Sky Festival in Huttwil, near Bern, is willing to pay back the expected 12,000 party goers in the event of heavy summer storms – a common plague for open air events in Switzerland.

 Organizers said the rain must continue for at least two days to prompt them to pay back. They have promised to pay pay 33 francs ($38) for two days of rain and up to the entire 99 francs ($114) the multiday ticket, if it rains through the whole party.

A note on the festival’s website said that to qualify for the reimbursement, which is only valid in case of a Thursday-Sunday “Weather Protection Guarantee” pass, it must rain a minimum of 11 millimeters per day, from 6 am to 5.59 am the following day.

The weather station in Bern/Zollikofen has the last word on the weather conditions.

The festival, where artists such as Adrian Stern, Stefanie Heinzmann, The Tarantinos and Tinkabelle are scheduled to perform, runs July 7-10, 2011.

OFFBEAT

MP up in arms over Swiss military’s choice of wine

Switzerland’s military is facing financial woes— its coffers are short of 1 billion francs to fund new arms purchases. But according to one MP, the army has a more pressing problem right now.

Published: 17 April 2024 15:44 CEST
MP up in arms over Swiss military’s choice of wine

On March 30th, a disturbing scene happened at the military base in Thun, in canton Bern.

At a ceremony to which soldiers’ families were invited, Italian wine was served to the guests.

This faux-pas may have remained under wraps and kept as a military secret if it weren’t for the vigilance of one member of the parliament.

But this incident was not lost on MP Yvan Pahud, who, as a member of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, is principally highly critical of any kind of international influence in Switzerland’s internal affairs — be it the country’s ties with the European Union or, in this particular case, foreign wine.

Therefore, as the National Council’s deputies debated various matters of national importance during a special session on April 15th, Pahud brought up the issue of foreign alcoholic beverages served by the army.

He argued that parents and guests who attended the event “were outraged that our Swiss army was promoting foreign wine, when  our country has its own winegrowers.”

The MPs remained neutral on this issue, and the Defence Department has yet to address this hot-button topic.

It is not known if at least some concessions to ‘Swissness’ were made at the event — that is, whether the bottles of Italian wine were uncorked with Swiss army knives.

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