Gyllene Tider

Per Gessle interview on Sverige! on SVT

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An interview with Per Gessle is to be broadcast on SVT tomorrow at 19:00, but it’s already available online on SVT Play. Program leader of Sverige!, Fredrik Önnevall talked to Per last week in Malmö. The program starts with a few seconds teaser, then the real deal is 7:22 into. Watch HERE!

Fredrik introduces Per’s career summary, showing footage from the past and tells Mr. G is releasing a new album where he looks back on his 44 years of songwriting career. Then the interview starts.

Fredrik asks Per how come he spent his summer with looking back on his music archives. Per says these days you spend a lot of time at home, there is no travelling. Somewhere around Easter he started to get eager to play, so he thought he records something acoustic and tries to play as many instruments as possible himself. Then he thought, shit, he doesn’t have any songs, but then he realized there are a lot of songs from back in time. So he went through his archives, songs he wrote since the early 80’s. He found many songs he still likes and were clumsily recorded or songs he wrote for others, e.g. Segla på ett moln for Anne-Lie Rydé or I din hand for Svante Thuresson. Those he never recorded and so he tested a lot of them. It became some quite nice months in the studio.

Fredrik asks if the songs were available on old reels. Per says they were mainly on cassettes. Mr. G realized that he has been writing songs since 44 years and that’s a long time. Fredrik says Per recorded a lot of songs in the beginning of the 80’s, when he was 20+ years old. Now he is 60+ and Fredrik is interested in how it is to sing those songs now, if Per still approves of the lyrics. Per says he rewrote some of them, because the expressions were a bit clumsy and it’s also important that the texts must be relevant still. Certain old songs have the feeling that feels good, so it was just about to make them maybe a bit more simple. The album is acoustic based, so he tried to make it as minimalist as possible.

Fredrik says it’s not only music from the past, but there are newly written songs. In May Per wrote Mamma and Pappa. Per’s father died when he was 19, in 1978. The day he died, Gyllene Tider broke through. That was the day when the first article about GT was written in Expressen by Mats Olsson. It was a strange feeling. The end of something and the beginning of something else.

Fredrik says many in Per’s surroundings, in his family passed away during the past years: his mother, his brother, his sister. Per says those were hard times and you’ll probably never understand that. It’s always difficult when something ends. It was the same with Marie when she passed away in December last year. She was sick for such a long time and you would think you kind of prepared for that, but when it happens, it’s still very hard to deal with it. Fredrik asks in what way Per reacted differently than he thought. Per says it’s mainly the feeling that Maire is not there anymore. You can’t call her or meet her. It’s an emptiness that changes you. Maybe not overnight, but it becomes a different life.

Fredrik asks what Per misses the most about Marie. He misses their relationship, their friendship and all they went through. They did a fantastic journey together. He misses to talk about that with her and to plan new things with her. So he misses her as a good friend. He knew Marie since 1978-79 when they shared rehearsal studio, Marie with her own band, Per with Gyllene Tider. So it’s a very long friendship that suddenly ended. It’s tough.

Fredrik asks what Per thinks was about the chemistry between them why it worked so well. Per says it’s many things. They both came from small towns and they were pretty much similar. Both of them were ambitious and had the same type of humor. At the same time, they were quite different. They were good at different things. And that made 1+1 = 3. Marie sang much better than Per, Per was more interested in music industry and how it worked. Marie could make the songs immensely much better than they actually were, because she made them her own. It Must Have Been Love, Listen To Your Heart or Queen Of Rain for example. She made them her own, you believed her and it’s a great quality to have as an artist.

Fredrik mentions Roxette also releases new music and is curious about how it is possible. Per says they release a collection, Bag Of Trix which consists of unreleased songs, bonus tracks that were released on e.g. a CD single in Japan or a strange mix from the US. For example, Joyride became No. 1 in the US, but the radios play a different version in the US than what was released in Sweden and that US version was never released in Sweden.

Fredrik says there is a new video to one of the new songs. Per says his wife recorded most of what can bee seen in the video. Those days you had a real camera with you, nowadays it’s much easier. It’s much fun to see those recordings. They were travelling around the world for appr. 8 years. That was the golden era in Roxette’s history between 1988 and 1995. Fredrik asks how far it feels for Per now. Mr. G says it feels like it was a long time ago, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like another person. He is still in that and is still touring all the time. He is reminded of Roxette all the time, many fans are still there. Fredrik asks if Per remembers all the happenings in the video. Mr. G says no, but he remembers when they had that giant fence and gave autographs through it. It was crazy. They had police escort and they had to run all the time. They were there around the whole world, but they didn’t see anything, because they were at the concert, then locked in the hotel room, then at the airport and off to another country. Fredrik asks if there is anything Per misses from those days. Per says he misses it all, it was a fantastic journey. He wouldn’t want to undo that. He would love to do that again, but in a different way.

Fredrik says Per always had the same people around him during his career and asks why is that. Mr. G says he likes long relationships. He says he’s been married since two thousand years, it feels like that now. Haha. He still works with Clarence Öfwerman, Roxette’s first producer, Marie since the 70’s, Gyllene Tider is also an old band.

Per’s home is still in Halmstad. He says you breathe in a different way in Halmstad. He is a small town guy. Fredrik asks how it is when Per Gessle goes out in Halmstad. Per says that’s fine, but of course he is more alert in Halmstad than in any other place. Sometimes it’s like a small event when he fuels his car or shops at ICA or goes to the pharmacy. People are very nice, there is never anything negative. Mr. G says people praise you the whole time and that gives an ego boost. Sometimes he just sits in the car and drives around Halmstad and look how things have changed. He drives around his old area where he grew up near Folkparken, his old schools, Örjans vall. It’s probably a sign of getting old, but he also often collects ideas for his texts. He wants to go back to that, write about it and color it for himself.

Fredrik asks what the word ”safety” means to Per. Mr. G says he needs substance all the time. He doesn’t like to jump around, he is a little ”late blooomer” in everything. He digs deep into things and that’s how he becomes good at them. He can do a very few things, but what he can do, he is pretty good at. It’s typically him.

Fredrik asks how many songs are lying around on old demo tapes. Per says there is a lot of unreleased stuff, but there is also crap stuff. The other day he found an old folder of texts and text ideas from the late 70’s. It’s from the time when GT’s first album was written. It was depressingly lousy. Haha.

Fredrik thanks for the interview.

 

 

Stills are from the program.

Roxette in the Rock ’n’ Roll Circus

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As we already posted about it in November 2019, in connection with the 50th anniversary of founding EMA Telstar (Live Nation today), legendary concert organizer, Thomas Johansson released a book, Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus: Artisterna – Musiken – Mötena (Rock ’n’ Roll Circus: Artists – Music – Meetings). Over the years Thomas has been working together with an endless list of artists and bands and of course, Roxette is one of them.

Thomas told his stories to writer and journalist (also author of The Lonely Boys fiction book among others), Mats Olsson who wrote them down. It’s not tabloid style, not at all. You won’t get to know any secrets you never knew about the artists themselves and most importantly, it’s not a scandal book. Thomas would never reveal anything he had been told in confidence. Why he can still do what he loves to do after 5 decades is that he is proved to be a trusty person and one who can sort out even things that seem to be impossible related to the concerts he organizes. Sometimes even related to those shows where he was not involved in the organizing. This is how his cooperation started with Bruce Springsteen, for example.

For a Roxer, the most important chapter in the book is without no doubt the one about Roxette, but since Per’s name and Roxette turn up here and there even in other bands’ and artists’ chapters, it’s worth reading the complete book. But not just because of that. The book tells you the story of how Thomas started his career already at the age of 17 and created his future day by day, event by event. You learn how important trust is and maintaining connections is another key factor. The little stories let you have an insight of how event organizing and musicians worked in the 60’s and 70’s and how it all has been changing over the decades. How you continuously have to keep up with the trends and be up-to-date with what’s happening in the industry. E.g. if someone has 1 billion views on YouTube, it doesn’t necessarily mean that people would buy tickets for 1000 SEK to see them live.

Roxette’s story in the book starts with them flying from Uruguay to Paraguay for their show in Asunción in April 1992. Thomas tells it was definitely the most dangerous flight ever in his life. He had pictures in his mind how the plane would crash in the rainforest, they would become completely isolated and stranded and started eating each other up. He says it was not a weird thought, because an air pocket caused a four-kilometer straight downfall. Per and Marie were quite calm, but there were other passengers panicking on the plane, screaming and crying. When they finally landed in Asunción, it was raining like hell. There was a press conference right at the airport, as it used to be a tradition in South America. There were 150 journalists sitting in a strange hall and so there was chaos, but they managed to get through it and leave by the cars that were already waiting outside after the conference.

Marie, Micke, Thomas and BoJo were travelling in the same car, a Mercedes. Thomas was sitting in the front and he remembers it was raining so heavily that his feet got completely wet even inside the car. Then suddenly, Marie from the backseat told she forgot her bag at the press conference. The whole convoy stopped, BoJo jumped out of the car into the water that reached up to his knees and rushed back to the airport for Marie’s bag. After he got back, they went to a golf hotel outside the city.

It stopped raining during the night and in the morning Thomas saw that the hotel was situated along a wide flood where dead cows were floating with their legs straight up in the air and crocodiles were swimming like in a Donald Duck comic. And Per was sitting on a balcony, sunbathing. [Hahaha. /PP]

The venue for the Roxette show was a big soccer stadium in Asunción that the organizer sold out. The arena was of the capacity of 30,000 people, but the organizer proudly said he sold 40,000 tickets. Tor Nielsen and Thomas immediately realized that they should strengthen the fences in front of the stage and they brought there a man who helped them with these kind of practical things.

The band was terribly good even if one couldn’t really hear what they were playing, because the crowd sing-along was louder than them. They asked the organizer how that could be, because no one spoke English, but the organizer said that in Asunción they used Roxette records for teaching at schools.

The organizers had built a large tower with mixer boards and spotlights in the middle of the crowd and while the band was playing Thomas saw from the stage how the light cones started to move and the whole tower was swaying by the pressure. BoJo gathered 200 soldiers who marched straight through the audience, up to the tower and they actually built it during the concert.

Thomas tells he has been working together with Per for 40 years, more than half of his life. Together with ”Blixten” Henriksson, who Thomas was working with in EMA Telstar they worked with Ulf Lundell, Tomas Ledin and Magnus Uggla, but after ABBA’s win in Brigthon Blixten took care of many other Swedish artists, while Thomas had other things to do. Blixten didn’t really believe in Gyllene Tider, he couldn’t see Flickorna på TV2 as a big hit and refused to work with them. So GT started working with their competitor, Thomas Nordlund at Showring. Later, in September 1981 they met Gyllene Tider and their business manager, Janne Beime and his wife, Lena in Örebro. Janne suggested to do a tour together. Blixten and Thomas were thinking all night about how to set up a tour for GT. The first time they worked together was in 1982 and the tour started in Ljusdal’s Folkets park. Thomas came just in time for the soundcheck and when he arrived he saw that the whole band was drinking coke except Göran and Per who ordered beer at the restaurant, but they didn’t get served, because they were too young. They were not, but they still didn’t get their beer.

Thomas says there was quite a contrast. They just did The Rolling Stones at Ullevi and then GT in Ljusdal. He was amazed at how good Gyllene Tider was. People loved them and the girls were screaming. Thomas is a nerd when it comes to songs and he can tell Per has written hits. GT was a classic pop band and they sounded fantastic already back then.

Mr. Johansson says it’s been a pleasure to work with Per, Gyllene Tider and Marie in different constellations. Before Roxette’s international break-through they already worked together on the Rock runt riket tour. Thomas could well build on what he learned from when he was organizing concerts for ABBA and other big international bands. Roxette played around the whole world. Not only in traditional arenas in England and the US, but also in South America and even Beijing in 1994. Wham! played there before Roxette, but Roxette was the first rock band allowed to play in China. Thomas remembers that they lived in a nice hotel in Beijing, but the venue, Capital Stadium left much to be desired. There were 12,000 in the crowd and no one was allowed to stand up and soldiers were sitting in the very front. The tickets cost 1-2 dollars, so not too expensive. People from the party listened to the songs in advance, checked the lyrics and they said they can’t play Sleeping In My Car. They didn’t explain why.

Thomas about Per:

Per is the engine, an engine of everything, a living dynamo. He was very young when we met in Örebro, but he was curious, smart and focused already then. Per has visions and thoughts, he wants a lot and that makes you talk, talk, talk and you can’t stand still. It’s a challenge, but also a pleasure to work with someone who is so creative.

Thomas admits he was a little worried before Gyllene Tider’s farewell tour last summer, but in hindsight he understands how incredibly deeply rooted GT’s songs are. They are part of Swedish summer.

Thomas mentions that Roxette had their very last concert in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2016. [The very last concert was in Cape Town, 8th February 2016. /PP] As Thomas says, ”Marie, this fragile little person, such a warm and unbelievably strong woman, could no longer tour”. Thomas remembers that after releasing Nu!, Marie so much wanted to do her last solo tour in 2014. Everyone told her she shouldn’t, she can’t, it won’t work, but she insisted and then you could see her enormous strength. She went through so much… The tour turned out to be phenomenal and she was singing like a goddess. Thomas says:

For me this is the essence of Marie, a mix of pop, blues, jazz, a little, little body with a big, big voice. Many have great voices and sing well, but can’t express anything. Marie can do that. She is a storyteller and not many are.

It’s hard to forget Roxette’s last show. It was windy that night in Johannesburg and there were 10,000 – 12,000 people inside the venue. Marie had problems with walking, so BoJo walked her to the stage. She was sitting on a chair, stood up and sat down again. Thomas thought that can’t go on like this for a long time. They booked a summer tour, but then it had to be cancelled.

After Marie stopped touring, Per wanted to continue. He wanted to play the songs he wrote for Roxette and Thomas and PG talked a lot about it. Thomas told Per that if he doesn’t do it, he will be thinking about it all the time in the future. So he said let’s call it Per Gessle’s Roxette and they book a tour in Europe in theatres between the capacity of 200 and 2000. Thomas thought Roger Waters performs as Roger Waters, but he plays Pink Floyd songs and those songs couldn’t sound more like Pink Floyd than when Roger plays them. The same with Paul McCartney and The Beatles. And no one else could sound more like Roxette than Per. The tour was good, even if it wasn’t sold out everywhere. It sounded fantastic and they got nice reviews. We will see what’s next. Now Per also has an electronic band, Mono Mind and Gyllene Tider’s 2019 tour was one of the biggest in Sweden.

Thomas says that Per has two, soon three generations in his audience. Like The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Roger Waters. 40 years of constant hits.

In other chapters Thomas mentions that he is a Formula 1 fan, just like Per. Roxette turns up in a chapter with their 1996 Toronto TV appearance and Mr. Johansson tells that at the same time he was negotiating NHL matches to be brought to Sweden. In the Ulf Lundell chapter Thomas tells the story of how he started working with Lundell. He asked if Thomas still works with Swedish artists and when Thomas said he works with Ledin and Gessle, Lundell said then he wants Thomas to do his next tour. Mr. Johnasson explains that Per, Tomas and Ulf are very different, both in music and in their personalities, but they are very similar in their creativity. Thomas says it’s motivating to work so close together with artists who are so creative, because you can learn what drives them and then it doesn’t matter if the artist’s name is Per, Tomas, Ulf, Mick, Keith, Bowie or Bruce, they have the same thoughts and same questions and Thomas feels lucky and priviliged to work with them.

Mr. G pops up in the David Bowie chapter as well. There Thomas mentions that he, Bosse Norling (tour leader), Bengt Berg (from EMI) and a very young Per Gessle were travelling together to Lyon to see Bowie’s concert in 1983. They were flying to Geneva, rented a car there and drove through Switzerland to Lyon, France. They arrived in the afternoon and Per invited them for lunch at a truck stop. Appetizer, main course, dessert and wine, everything was included and cost ten francs per person. They ate one-minute hearty steak with french fries and there was nothing wrong with the wine either. For the coffee they could choose dessert or calvados. Thomas felt like they had begun to live the glamorous rock life.

From the Tina Turner chapter we get to know that Tina lives in Switzerland and Thomas was once there for dinner with Roxette. They were drinking good wines and eating excellent truffle pasta prepared by Tina herself.

As I mentioned at the beginning, you can see that Per and Roxette really turn up in the book in several chapters. Thomas and Mats picked 25 artists and bands to write about. So besides Roxette you can read stories related to Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, KISS, ABBA, Queen, Lou Reed, Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, Ulf Lundell, David Bowie, The Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tomas Ledin, Neil Young, Tina Turner, AC/DC, Metallica, Rod Stewart, Pink, Roger Waters, Paul Simon, U2 and Paul McCartney. The foreword was written by Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA.

It’s a very interesting reading, I can only recommend. Good for practicing your Swedish too.

Gyllene Tider’s GT40 Live Ullevi 2019 show is out!

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8 months after Gyllene Tider’s farewell tour is over, the Golden Guys surprised us with a live show release. The concert film is the complete Ullevi show, recorded on 3rd August 2019 in Gothenburg. The concert was originally planned to be held at Slottskogsvallen, but right after the tickets went on sale it turned out to be too small, so it had to be moved to Ullevi, of course. The number of visitors at the show was 54340! Pure awesomeness! And the chance to relive the best gig on the GT40 tour is just amazing!

Since I usually stand in the very front of the crowd, I love watching the DVD recordings later, because then I can see how the stage and the crowd looked from the back and how the band saw the audience and the venue itself. The camera angles used for the GT40 shooting are fabulous. You can see so many details and you can feel yourself standing and dancing and singing along right in the middle of the crowd, in front of those 5 guys and 2 ladies in top shape, giving their 120% of energy up on stage.

I want last summer back! Watching this concert on my 24th day of quarantine I’m just grateful for it and I appreciate it even more (if possible at all) how this band could unite so many people via their music. Hopefully, the good times are back again soon and ojojoj… still can’t believe it was Gyllene Tider’s last tour. Was it? I didn’t want this Ullevi gig to end… But the good thing is that from now on I can watch it anytime!

Streaming is available . If you want to rent the film, you get a 48-hour streaming period for 4,99 USD. You will be able to stream it on supported browsers or the Vimeo mobile app and watch it on TV, mobile and tablet. While if you buy it for 9,99 USD, you can stream it anytime, download it and watch it on TV, mobile and tablet.

If streaming is not your thing and you haven’t ordered your physical copy yet, you can buy the DVD or Blu-ray at or .

Setlist

1. Skicka ett vykort, älskling
2. Juni, juli, augusti
3. Det hjärta som brinner
4. (Hon vill ha) Puls
5. Flickorna på TV2
6. Vandrar i ett sommarregn
7. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän
8. Det kändes inte som maj
9. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
10. Tuffa tider

BAND PRESENTATION

11. Låt denna trumslagarpojke sjunga!
12. Kung av sand
13. En sten vid en sjö i en skog
14. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
15. Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly
16. (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet
17. Tylö Sun

Encore 1

18. Billy
19. Det är över nu
20. Gå & fiska!

Encore 2

21. När vi två blir en
22. Sommartider
23. När alla vännerna gått hem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stills are from the concert recording.

 

Per Gessle’s surprise release on his birthday

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Per decided to keep the tradition of releasing something special on his birthday. Last year it was the first Mono Mind album, Mind Control, this year it is the demos to Gyllene Tider’s last album, Samma skrot och korn. Better said, not all the demos, since Vanliga saker is missing, but there is a demo to Detektiv. The latter one was a left-over song from Samma skrot och korn, but in the end it was released in November as a single.

Per says he made no demo for Vanliga saker, because it was too late before they had to fly to France and that was the last song he had written. He only has a sketch on his iPhone.

Title of the album is Samma skrot och demos. The album cover shows a lovely pic of Per as a kid and his mother. You are surely wondering if it gets a physical release, but so far there is no plan for vinyl or CD.

It’s always great to hear / read about any steps of a song’s evolution, so it’s cool to have these demos now. You realize there are some bigger or smaller changes in the lyrics (no Kent in the demo for Jag drömde jag mötte Fluortanten for example) and it’s even more interesting to hear a demo to a song which is not sung by Per on the album. Låt denna trumslagarpojke sjunga! sounds totally different when Per sings it vs. when it’s Micke Syd behind the mic.

The demo to Mannen med gitarr is the same as the one you can find on The Per Gessle Archives (Demos & Other Fun Stuff!, Vol. 2). Per wrote it for the Mazarin album, but it never made it. Mr. G said back then that the reason was that Clarence and Christoffer hated it. They probably felt it was a little bit too poppy and a bit too lightweight for that album. Fitted GT now.

Tracklist

  1. Skrot och korn (T&A 1 aug 2018) – 2:55
  2. Det kändes inte som maj (T&A 31 juli 2018) – 2:23
  3. Jag drömde jag mötte Fluortanten (T&A 27 nov 2018) – 3:17
  4. Någon att hålla i hand (T&A 13 juli 2016) – 2:12
  5. Vid hennes sida (T&A 26 jan 2019) – 2:46
  6. Aftonstjärna (T&A 28 aug 2018) – 2:55
  7. Bjud till! (T&A 5 juni 2018) – 3:02
  8. Låt denna trumslagarpojke sjunga! (T&A 20 mars 2018) – 3:20
  9. Mannen med gitarr (T&A 20 nov 2002) – 3:12
  10. Bara i en dröm (T&A 30 juli 2018) – 3:16
  11. Henry har en plan på gång (T&A 26 jan 2019) – 3:00
  12. Allt det andra (T&A 30 juli 2018) – 3:47
  13. Detektiv (T&A 10 juni 2018) – 2:50

Listen to the album on Spotify, iTunes, Deezer or other digital platforms.

Happy birthday, Per! Thank you for the prezzie and keep the tradition going!

CONTEST – Win a signed Gyllene Tider 2.019 – en sista refräng book!

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Anders Roos, photographer and publisher of the Gyllene Tider 2.019 – en sista refräng book was kind enough to offer us 1 copy for a contest. RoxBlog added another one, so now 2 books can be won. HERE you could already read our review, from which you can see it’s worth having this book written by Jan-Owe Wikström in your collection. Both copies are signed by all 5 band members!

In order to participate, answer the following questions correctly:

  1. How many Gyllene Tider books had Jan-Owe Wikström written before Gyllene Tider 2.019 – en sista refräng? – 2
  2. Where did GT record their last studio album? Name the studio and country! – Studios La Fabrique, France
  3. Which was the closing song on each setlist on the GT40 tour? – När alla vännerna gått hem
  4. During which song and at which concert was the GT40 Live! album cover photo taken? Name the song and town! – Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång, Kalmar

You can find the answers to all questions on RoxBlog. 😉

Send an e-mail with your name, address and the correct answers to the questions to rxbcontests@gmail.com until 23:59 CET, 9th January 2020. The 2 lucky winners will be announced shortly after. Good luck!

Contest terms and conditions:
– In order to participate, you have to send an e-mail to rxbcontests@gmail.com with name, address and correct answers to the 4 questions. We will consider all e-mails we receive until 23:59 CET on 9th January 2020.
– 2 winner will be picked randomly among those who have participated and sent the correct answers.
– You can only participate once, any attempt to participate twice or more times will lead to your disqualification.
– Prizes won’t be paid out in cash. Prizes will be sent by registered mail only once.
– The winners will be announced on this website, on our Facebook page and will also be notified per e-mail. You’ll be required to answer the e-mail confirming your address.
– RoxetteBlog.com will not enter into any correspondence regarding the result of the contest and is not liable for any damages, loss or expenses that may result in connection to the prizes.
– By taking part in the contest, personal data (first name, surname, e-mail address and address) will be collected. These data are needed in order to run the contest, particularly in order to match participation applications to their entries as well as to identify and notify the winners. This method of processing data is therefore required pursuant to Article 6 Paragraph 1 lit b of the GDPR to fulfil contractual obligations. The personal data collected will be processed and used by RoxetteBlog.com only to the extent that is required in order to run the contest. The personal data will be stored for the duration of the contest and – in order to process any claims relating to winnings and damages – for a maximum of 6 months afterwards and they will then be deleted. By participating you agree to all above mentioned and your name being published on this website as well as on social media channels in case you win.

Photo by Anders Roos

UPDATE on 10th January 2020: 2 winners are picked. They are: Attila Soós and Sabina Seyfarth. The winners are informed via e-mail too.