Dearest favorite scene,
what a year it has been! While AI-generated music is storming the charts, funding for popular music has been cut and in some cases even eliminated in this country. The nationwide club closures continue, which was also noticeable in Bremen. Many Bremen clubs are acutely threatened and one even had to close. There was also a fight to preserve important rehearsal rooms — fortunately successful!
We are all the more happy and hopeful that many musicians did not let themselves be defeated, continued to release great music and used our funding opportunities extensively for this. We heard, supported and celebrated grandiose releases from Bremen in 2025. There is also hope in Bremen with regard to the clubs. Some courageous people from Bremerhaven and Bremen are planning to open new venues in their cities in the coming year. And the POP Office Bremen also has ambitious plans to further support these positive developments. In addition to our existing program, we are planning a new RELEASE fund, further POP SCHOLARSHIPS and a new round of PLAYTIME.
Here’s a quick recap of what was happening at POP Office Bremen in 2025, and a sneak peek into 2026. Let’s go!
On the project side, we look back on an eventful year. We have had our most active year to date, which is also reflected in the figures. We were not only able to record a significant increase in reach in social media, but also a noticeable increase in events, workshops and applications. Your active participation helps us a lot to further and more precisely tailor our program to your needs and to make your interests visible to politicians, among others. Thank you for that!
In 2025, we were able to curate many showcases, which always gives us great pleasure to see Bremen acts perform live on stage. In addition to the — as always — grandiose Breminale Showcase, we were also able to accommodate Bremen artists at festivals such as the SAiL in Bremerhaven, the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg and the KOSMOS in Chemnitz. Club stages have also finally played a greater role at POP Office Bremen through our PLAYTIME measure, in cooperation with Clubverstärker e.V.: The resident DJs placed with MS Treue, p.ara and Krise were sometimes so convincing that permanent residencies were created for the musicians. We would like to expressly thank the festival and club operators for their trust. The same applies, of course, to the artists who have brought these stages to life with their music. We thank you!
Speaking of supra-regionality: The LIVE fund was also in high demand again this year. We were able to support 15 music projects, which played a total of 61 gigs, on their tour. Despite the increase, we were again unable to meet the needs of all applications, which we naturally regret. In order to be able to consider all your eligible applications, our funds were too tight again this year. At this point, we would still like to encourage you to apply again in the next round and to generally articulate the importance of such funding programs loudly and publicly, because this is the only way we can generate the funds in the future that the music scene in the best federal state deserves.
Your numerous applications for the POP SCHOLARSHIP have also made it possible to plan the next round of this format. The POP SCHOLARSHIP will return in 2026 and we are super happy about how big and positive the response is.
However, it is also clear that the POP SCHOLARSHIP can still only be awarded to a few musicians, as the funds are unfortunately also scarce here. In order to still be able to support you with your releases, we want to launch a supplementary, additional measure in 2026. A first RELEASE fund for musicians from Bremen and Bremerhaven is to be created. We are full of anticipation to tell you more about this in the coming year and to make one or the other release possible.
In addition to these perhaps more spectacular-looking funding opportunities, we had really great information and networking events in the past year. First and foremost, of course, is a truly grandiose MUSIC MEET UP in the warehouse, which was simply a lot of fun. But we also offered more workshops than ever before and you gratefully accepted this offer — most of the 17 workshops were fully booked in no time at all.
With into:music, a cooperation with Clubverstärker and Musikszene Bremen, we have jointly taken the first steps in promoting young talent in order to make it easier for young people to enter the live music industry.
We were also able to increase the POPup-MEETup series. So in 2025 there were 4 of these information evenings for the first time.
The consulting pool has long been established as a constant companion of our program. The pool was able to help musicians in 54 individual consultations. We hope to be able to add another scoop in 2026.
Your positive feedback on these informal offers makes it clear to us: The transfer of knowledge in the form of events, consultations and workshops should continue to flow and be expanded in the coming year. So please send us your topic suggestions so that we can optimize these offers.
What has given us the most joy and motivation this year, in addition to all the great content and varied music, are the great people we have been able to work with. We would like to thank our members, our board, the people on and off the stage, our colleagues in our fantastic office shared space, the association colleagues, the Initiative Musik, the team from into:music, Leandra Hanke, the Senator for Economic Affairs, Ports and Transformation, the Senator for Culture, Bas & Aer and everyone we have probably forgotten: Thank you!
You will find out all the details of our upcoming program in the new year as soon as we are back from our winter vacation. We will not be in the office from December 19, 2025 to January 5, 2026 inclusive. Your emails and DMs will of course still reach us and will be read by us in January.
We wish you all happy holidays and a good trip into 2026. We’ll see you in the new year with recharged energy and full of ideas!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Your POP Office Bremen
