Candy Girls & Billige Plätze ・ Pop-Kultur Festival 2026

August 24–30, 2026 | silent green Kulturquartier, Festsaal Kreuzberg, Kulturbrauerei, Pierre Boulez Saal, and more 

Live concerts, experimental music formats, talks, and more. You can look forward to international and local artists, world premieres, and music in all its forms—from large stages to intimate club shows.

Who gets visibility in pop culture—and who is left in the cheap seats? Drawing on their books *Candy Girls* and *Cheap Seats —Gender, Power, and Discrimination in the Music Industry,” Sonja Eismann and Rike van Kleef will discuss feminist perspectives on pop-cultural phenomena, the history of female fan cultures, and sexism and structural inequalities in the music industry. The focus is on the connections between pop, power, and desire: Who is heard, who is seen, and what mechanisms determine cultural participation? The discussion will examine both historical developments and current debates within the music industry and pop culture. Together, Sonja Eismann and Rike van Kleef will discuss the role that solidarity, communities, and feminist critique can play in shaping cultural spaces, and what perspectives this opens up for the future. The conversation will be moderated by Josephine Papke. The author and journalist works as an online editor at Missy Magazine and focuses on pop culture, feminism, and queer and BIPoC perspectives. At the intersection of journalism, performance, and sociopolitical discourse, she explores issues of representation, identity, and cultural participation.