Who Will Take the DJ Booth
Naomi Campbell (56) is no newcomer to this. A year ago, in September 2025, she made her DJ debut at the Ye Summer Closing electronic festival – a party held in a construction pit in northern Munich, where organizers sold 3,000 to 4,000 tickets. Part of the audience at the time came less for the music than for the chance to see a 1990s supermodel in person.
At HeidiFest, Naomi Campbell will step behind the decks for the first time – previously she hadn’t been entrusted with DJ duties in this project. Klum and Campbell have been friends for decades and were both born under the sign of Gemini. Klum has repeatedly called her fellow catwalk veteran her “twin sister,” so the debut at the DJ booth looks less like a media sensation than a continuation of that friendship. Naomi Campbell’s participation in the party is already confirmed, though the guest list continues to grow and contracts with some performers have not yet been signed.
Who Else Will Perform at the Party
Besides Naomi Campbell, the following have confirmed their participation:
- Vicky Leandros (77) – for the duration of the event, the singer will finally be able, as the organizers joke, to “send her Theo to Lodz” – a nod to her 1975 hit “Theo, wir fahr’n nach Lodz.”
- The duo La Bouche, one of the icons of 1990s Eurodance.
- Katja Ebstein (81), an icon of German schlager music.
- Liz Mitchell (74) – Munich’s disco fans know her well from Boney M.
- Tony Christie (83), a British singer and Campbell’s fellow countryman.
For comparison: about 700 invited guests gathered in the Hofbraeuhaus hall at the first HeidiFest a year earlier, and this year’s lineup already looks richer than last year’s.
RTL to Broadcast the Event in Full
The change of broadcaster for the party is no accident. The rights to air the first HeidiFest in September 2025 belonged to ProSieben, but viewer interest in the broadcast turned out to be modest: the show drew an average of around 760,000 viewers, with the audience share among 14- to 49-year-olds coming to just 5.9%. At the same time, ProSieben head Hannes Hiller acknowledged that the buzz around the party on social media more than made up for the broadcast’s modest ratings.
On 6 August, ProSieben spokesman Christoph Koerfer officially closed the discussion over who would broadcast the model fest this year. This year the channel will limit itself to Oktoberfest segments, with no separate HeidiFest broadcast. Just a day later, the rights to broadcast the second party unexpectedly passed to RTL – a channel where Klum had not previously had any major projects of her own.
Initially, RTL had planned to allot only about half an hour to the broadcast, suggesting viewers watch the rest on RTL+. Those plans changed after the announcement drew a noticeable response from viewers: RTL’s Head of Content Inga Leschek explained the channel’s new stance by pointing to exactly this public interest, and confirmed that on 17 September the channel will clear its schedule entirely for HeidiFest – unabridged, from start to finish.
The final broadcast schedule looks like this: a special edition of Frauke Ludowig’s program “Exclusiv Spezial” from Munich will air at 18:30, and the party itself will begin at 20:15. But broadcast will come live from the main hall of the Hofbraeuhaus, on the ground floor of the world’s most famous beer hall. The evening will wrap up around 22:30, and instead of the traditional “mugs up” toast, the final call will be “mugs aside.”
Why the Channel Had Enough Airtime to Spare
Behind RTL’s decision to show the party in full lies not only viewer demand but also the European club calendar. Bayer Leverkusen will play their Europa League match against Slovenia’s Celje on 16 September at 21:00 – the day before HeidiFest. Hoffenheim will play on 17 September against Greece’s OFI Crete, but that match kicks off at 18:45 and will end well before RTL’s broadcast begins.
As a result, no German team will be on the pitch at the same time as the broadcast from the Hofbraeuhaus. It is precisely this rare coincidence that spared the channel any scheduling conflicts. Thanks to that, viewers won’t have to choose between football and Heidi Klum.
Why This Matters
Last year’s experience with ProSieben showed that a “star party” format on its own does not guarantee viewer demand, even amid considerable buzz on social media. In our country, as always, people try to substitute the word “concept” for the word “demand.” But no new creative word or decision can overturn the laws of economics. It is demand that gives rise to supply – not a star’s name or paid placements bought from local bloggers.
The fact that RTL decided to show the party in full rather than as a short segment points to the channel betting on two assets at once: adult viewers’ nostalgia for the music of the 1970s-1990s, and the Hofbraeuhaus’s status as a symbol of Bavarian culture, recognized far beyond Germany’s borders.
Naomi Campbell’s participation adds some star power to the event, but is not generating the level of interest the organizers had hoped for. For RTL, which only acquired the rights to broadcast HeidiFest a month ago, this is a chance to turn a local Munich party into a notable event of national significance – even before the doors of Oktoberfest open. But after last year’s media flop, the choice of broadcaster itself is being received with a “thanks for at least agreeing to do it” attitude, since RTL is not a channel watched by fans of club life and supermodels. And the fact that local journalists were not invited at all calls into question whether the organizers had any media logic at all.
