Sommer Open Air Ickern

Premiere Open Air for Protestant Youth and Cultural Work

The Rock Café Q in Castrop-Rauxel-Habinghorst is a Protestant youth and cultural project that has made a name for itself in the local music scene over the years with open-stage evenings and concert series. In 2026, the team is taking a big step: their first own open-air festival. On Saturday, July 11, 2026, the church square (Kirchplatz) at the Christuskirche in the Ickern district will be transformed into a festival stage for the first time — a premiere that social worker Frank Ronge and his volunteer team have been preparing for months.

Live Music with Local Bands

Several bands from the Ruhr area and the region will perform between 3:30 PM and 10:00 PM. All bands play voluntarily — a conscious decision by the organizers, who have set up the festival as a purely volunteer project. The program aims for a mix of rock, pop, singer-songwriter, and acoustic sets. Exact band names will be announced in advance on the Rock Café Q website and in the Ruhrnachrichten.

Motto: Live Music, Sun, Good Vibes

Frank Ronge emphasizes the festival motto in the announcement: "Live Music, Sun, Good Vibes" — a deliberately accessible atmosphere that positions the open air as a meeting place for the Ickern and Habinghorst neighborhood. With a stage on the church square, a bar, food stalls, seating, and a family area, Rock Café Q wants to "create a place for encounters, music, and community.".

Rock Café Q — Protestant Youth Work with a Stage

Rock Café Q in Habinghorst has been known for years for its open-stage evenings, where aspiring musicians and bands have an accessible opportunity to perform. With the Sommer Open Air, the café is expanding its concept to include an open-air format: from the basement club to the church square, from winter business to summer. The festival is part of community-based Protestant youth and cultural work — everything from the initial stage planning to bar organization is supported by volunteers.

Ickern and Castrop-Rauxel

Castrop-Rauxel is a district town in the Recklinghausen district with around 73,000 inhabitants. Ickern is a district in the south of the city, characterized by former mining settlements, a history of old industry, and a close-knit church community structure. The Christuskirche Ickern with its representative church square has been a meeting point for the community for decades — and in 2026, it will become a festival stage for the first time with the Sommer Open Air. The festival thus joins an increasingly vibrant sub-festival scene in the northern Ruhr area, which is experimenting more and more creatively with small district festivals and open-air formats.