BAZ! – Boulderen An Zee 2008, making of

In Climbing-Gyms.info by Udo Neumann

Old BAZ! vs new BAZ

BAZ has returned, but it won’t be the BAZ that you have experienced some years ago. It will be different, new, some might say better, some might say that they liked it the old way but we’d like to see it as evolving, maturing and exploring.

In 2006 we experimented with a boulder festival on the beach. In 2007, 2008 and 2009 we exploited the concept and nurtured it to incredible scale.

But then everything came to a hold due to unexpected damages of equipment and lack of individual motivation and energy in the project.

BAZ has been handed over to a new organisation which has great plans for it. We’ve had a good look at the project and decided that we had to change a few things to make it viable and successful.

In previous editions we have tried to raise the standard of boulder events and we are proud that that hasn’t gone unnoticed. Some of it has been adopted by others which made us even more proud. This is exactly our mission and to do what we have done in the years before would only be repeating what we have already done. So, it’s time for a change and for something new.

The first thing you’ll probably notice is that we changed the prices. An all day pass will cost you 50,- these days excluding ticket fees. An increase of 20,- might seem much but we think it’s fair. The old price was based on the perception that anyone should be able to attend but was actually too low to break even and got the organisation into trouble. None of the former organisers have got any income from the project, some have actually paid for it with their own money.

Fifty euros isn’t really based on our expenses, we create a festival for you with art, music, bouldering, good food and drinks, an international gathering of boulderers and an incredible atmosphere nowhere to be found. We believe 50,- represents the value of that for our visitors.

This year’s finals will be totally different from the last 3 finals. It’s not so much the format that we use but the way that we bring the finals to the audience. We want to invent new experiences in bouldering events and finals and we hope that we have found a way to do that again.

Without giving away too much information, we’re also very fond of the element of surprise, BAZ will be a less noisy and bombastic event. It will be a friendly festival but, with great problems for both beginners and the world’s best athletes like it has always had.

Since we’re less loud, we thought it would be a good decision to drop the exclamation mark from the name and logo.

So BAZ! is now BAZ

We hope to see you at BAZ on August 16, 17 and 18. Find more info here!

– Abel