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Open-Air Festival Porta³ - © Photogroove
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Open-Air Festival Porta³

Porta³ stands for three evenings³, three artists³, three genres and an admission-free picnic concert. Plus a very special venue: a real Trier landmark constructed during the Roman Empire: the Porta Nigra. At this festival, ancient culture meets modern entertainment, Rome meets rock music and Porta meets piano. Very different categories are possible, because Porta³ stands for three evenings with three different genres.
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Porta³ traditionally takes place in mid-June, in front of the Porta Nigra. In good weather and a relaxed atmosphere, the Roman city gate presents itself as an impressive backdrop with an absolutely unique selling point.

Header: (c) Photogroove
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Details

Dates:
June 18 - 20, 2026
Doors: 18:30, start: 20:00

Venue:
Square in front of the Porta Nigra, Trier

Tickets are available at the Trier tourist office next to the Porta Nigra, Ticket Regional, Popp Concerts, and Eventim.

All tickets include the VRT-KombiTicket and entitle the holder to use the VRT network for travel to and from the concert on the day of the event within the area covered by the VRT.

June 18 | MEUTE

MEUTE scored their first hit in spring 2016 when their video for the deep house classic ‘Rej’ by Berlin DJ duo Âme went viral on social media. Even back then, they were unmistakable at their street gigs, sporting the red uniform vests that have accompanied them around the world ever since: from the Hamburg State Opera to Oceania, from the Vienna Konzerthaus to a total of five acclaimed North American tours, from the Berlin Velodrom to Mexico and South Africa. Over 600 shows in more than 30 countries and acclaimed performances at international festivals such as Coachella, Fusion, Solidays and Jazz à Vienne underline their international reputation. They contributed several songs to the fourth season of the cult series Babylon Berlin as well as to the large demonstrations against right-wing extremism in Hamburg in 2024.

At their live concerts, the JUBEL (cheering), which was also the motto of their tenth band anniversary in 2025, is not only guaranteed for techno fans: their music also thrives on their first-class instrumental skills, their driving improvisations and their flowing transitions, which carry the rhythm non-stop throughout the evening without the audience having to stop dancing for a single moment.

Meute not only breaks down genres and will expand the festival's portfolio with a new musical style, but they will also transform the venerable Porta Nigra forecourt into the city's most sought-after dance floor.

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June 19 | Christian Steiffen

There are two camps in Schlager music: E-Schlager, which takes its lyrics about love, lust and passion to the stage with the utmost seriousness and celebrates every computer-generated ‘La-La-La’ as the rebirth of serious mass ecstasy – and Christian Steiffen, whose stage name already reveals that self-irony has taken over the baton here. With lyrics that use deliberate ambiguity to complement authentic Schlager chords, but at the same time subvert them. After MEUTE bringing techno sounds to Porta³ music festival for the first time in 2026, Christian Steiffen will put an end to Schlager madness on Friday, June 19, 2026, and instead make it big.

The self-proclaimed ‘God of Schlager’ came within a hair's breadth of only being able to perform as part of a (newly established) town twinning. Because if Christian Steiffen had actually become mayor of Osnabrück, that would probably have been the only thing that could have legitimised a performance on the magnificent arched stage in front of the Porta Nigra. He ran twice, once under his birth name Hardy Schwetter and once under his stage name Christian Steiffen. Twice he was denied political power. But political pop music has always had a difficult time anyway. 

And so the New York-trained actor now commands not only 3% of the votes in Osnabrück, but 100% of the votes in Germany – at least among the dance-crazy fans at his concerts, who celebrate the pop star, who oscillates between entertainment and euphoria, like Elvis once did in Bad Nauheim.

What distinguishes Steiffen and songs like ‘Verliebt verlobt veheiratet vertan’ (In love, engaged, married, wasted), ‘Eine Flasche Bier’ (A bottle of beer) or ‘Sexualverkehr’ (Sexual intercourse) from the smooth-ironed world of Schlager is his ability to go against the grain of the genre's highly stylised superficiality, which has been quoted a thousand times over. Where others sing of great love, he prefers to sing about himself (‘Ich hab' die ganze Nacht von mir geträumt’ – I dreamed about myself all night long), and he does so with a disarming boldness and well-measured salaciousness, in beer-fuelled bliss and solemnity, that makes you smile. In other words, Christian Steiffen's greatest sincerity lies in singing about the ridiculous, and his greatest strength is the affectation he performs with his magnificent singing voice, which he pokes fun at – with a great deal of enjoyment. Both on and off stage.

So when Christian Steiffen arrives, he doesn't arrive quietly. He arrives as a ‘worker of love’, with self-pity and self-confidence, with irony and fervour, with an evening in which ancient architecture becomes the stage for contemporary pop madness. There's no question that the Porta will welcome him. There's also no doubt about what it will call out to him, perhaps inaudibly, but full of joy at reflecting the colourful fireworks of nights spent dancing on its black stones for two hours: ‘I feel disco!’

Ticket sales start soon »

Contact

Trier Tourismus und Marketing GmbH
Hanna Landwehr
Sichelstraße 34-36
54290 Trier

Tel. +49 651 9780856
E-Mail hanna.landwehr@trier-info.de

Organizer

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