Avo Session Basel

AVO Session Basel is an indoor music festival, which takes place every November in Basel, Switzerland. The festival features world-renowned as well as national stars of the most diverse music genres in an intimate club setting.

The start

The AVO Session Basel emerged from a festival known as the Rheinknie Session, which was launched by Enrico Bonometti, Matthias Müller and Stephan Werthmüller in 1986. The five concerts of the first installment of the Festival in May 1986, which included performances by Oscar Peterson, Albert Collins and Koko Taylor, all sold out. The second year’s edition included outstanding shows by Fats Domino and Buddy Guy.

Regional establishment

1988 hailed a major breakthrough, when Miles Davis agreed to perform at the festival. Subsequently the festival was first acknowledged outside of north-western Switzerland. Major names such as Dizzy Gillespie, Michel Petrucciani and Herbie Hancock followed and Claude Nobs from Montreux Jazz Festival joined as a member of the patrons committee.

In its first ten years the festival focussed on continuous growth. By gradually integrating musical styles such as world music, soul and funk after 1995, it proved possible to approach a younger audience.

National take-off

In 1997 the festival management decided to revamp the festival's content as well as its look and the festivals image was rejuvenated with greater importance attached to the attraction and driving power of international performers.

Embracing this vision, presenting sponsor AVO Cigars, part of Oettinger Davidoff, agreed to a growth-orientated sponsorship deal.

In the following years the festival now called AVO SESSION Basel presented artists such as Sir Bob Geldof in 1998, Ray Charles in 1999, James Brown in 2000, Chris de Burgh in 2001, Paolo Conte in 2002, Deep Purple in 2003 and Lionel Richie in 2004, Seal in 2005, Sir Elton John in 2006 and Joe Cocker in 2007.The club style seating arrangement, the sometimes daring combination of acts and above all the opportunity to experience big names in an intimate atmosphere have become trademarks of AVO SESSION Basel. The overall occupancy rate has been regularly between 95% and 100% for many years.

International acclaim

All concerts are recorded in their entirety and broadcast in up to forty countries on Swiss Television (SF), Arte, Telebasel and 3sat networks (a potential audience of 150 million households). The majority of concerts are also broadcast on Switzerland's DRS1 and DRS3 radio stations.In 2006 the festival’s first EUROVISION broadcast took place with a show of Sir Elton John, followed by Katie Melua’s Europe-wide live broadcast in 2007. Additionally, the first live DVD featuring the show of Solomon Burke in 2003 was released in the same year. Further DVDs are about to follow.

Today the AVO SESSION Basel is acknowledged as one of the top-profile European music festivals, an achievement that is reflected with it winning first prize in the cultural category of the International Sponsorships Awards presented by the German sponsorship association FASPO.

External links

* [http://www.avo.ch The website of AVO SESSION Basel]