About piste

piste

piste is a free, advertising-financed city magazine for northern Germany, published monthly with separate editions for Hamburg, Lübeck, Schwerin, Rostock and Neubrandenburg. First issued in 1984 and grown out of a supplement to the Lübecker Nachrichten, it is published as a franchise operation with regional editorial offices in each city, serving the north for four decades. Its focus is the city's nightlife and (regional) cultural events — festivals, theatre performances and concerts — cinema films, and, depending on the edition, DVD and CD tips, plus city news, columns, lifestyle and jobs. The distributed circulation was stated at 121,000 copies (IVW Q2/2009) — the five editions' combined print-era reach, audited and documented. The web portal piste.de — "Dein Stadtmagazin, Termine, Fotos, News & more" — provides the event calendar, city news and photo galleries for all regional editions.

Overview

piste is a free monthly city magazine for northern Germany, financed by advertising and distributed gratis. It appears with a dedicated edition in each of five cities: Hamburg, Lübeck, Schwerin, Rostock and Neubrandenburg. The magazine is published as a franchise object — the regional editions produced by the regional editorial offices under the common piste brand. The content focus: the city-related nightlife and the (regional) cultural events — the festivals, the theatre performances, the concerts — the cinema films and, depending on the edition, the DVD and CD tips. The nightlife coverage is the magazine's signature: the clubs' programmes, the parties' dates, the bars' news — the cities' night economies mapped for the readers. The cultural-event coverage — the festivals (the Lübeck Summer Operetta's 32nd season), the theatre, the concerts (Mark Forster's open-air tour, AnnenMayKantereit) — is the regional culture's service journalism: the dates, the venues, the tickets. The cinema coverage — the films' reviews and tips — serves the moviegoers. The DVD and CD tips — the edition-dependent — serve the home audience. The city news — the construction, the institutions, the anniversaries — grounds the magazine in the cities' everyday: the Rostock shipyard triangle's construction, the Schwerin "Grabower Küsschen" since 1835. Further focuses: the city-related news, the various columns, the lifestyle and the jobs. The associated web presence piste.de gives an overview of all regional editorial offices and offers the users a multitude of photos and information: the event calendar with the parties, concerts and cultural dates, the city news, the highlights. The distributed circulation: 121,000 copies (IVW Q2/2009).

History

piste's history begins in 1984: the first issue of the free city magazine, grown out of a supplement (Beileger) of the Lübecker Nachrichten — the Lübeck daily newspaper's insert becoming the independent magazine. The 1984 founding year's city-magazine landscape — the German Stadtmagazine's boom, the alternative press's commercialisation — gave piste its model: the free, ad-financed monthly for the young urban audience. The Stadtmagazine's 1980s — the Berlin tip and zitty, the Hamburg Szene, the regional titles — were the free press's laboratory: the alternative culture's commercial forms, the young audience's media. piste's Lübecker Nachrichten origin — the established daily's supplement — gave the new magazine the institutional backing the pure alternative titles lacked: the newspaper's printing, distribution and advertising networks. The franchise expansion — the Hamburg, Schwerin, Rostock and Neubrandenburg editions — made piste the northern German city-magazine brand: the five cities' nightlife and culture covered under one title. The franchise model — the regional editorial offices producing the local editions — combines the brand's economies of scale with the local journalism's authenticity: the Hamburg edition's Reeperbahn, the Lübeck edition's old town, the Rostock edition's Warnemünde, the Schwerin edition's lakes, the Neubrandenburg edition's region. The 121,000 distributed copies (IVW Q2/2009) — the five editions' sum — document the print era's reach: the free stacks in the cities' bars, clubs, cinemas, shops and universities, the young urban audience's monthly companion. The 121,000 distributed copies (IVW Q2/2009) document the print era's reach: the free magazine's stacks in the cities' bars, clubs, cinemas and shops. The piste.de portal — the event calendar, the photos, the news — extended the brand online: the print magazine's digital twin for the 2020s.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's programme is the northern German cities' leisure and culture. The nightlife: the parties, the clubs, the bars — the cities' night scene mapped. The cultural events: the festivals, the theatre performances, the concerts — the regional culture's calendar. The cinema: the films — the reviews and the tips. The DVD and CD tips: depending on the edition — the home entertainment. The city news: the city-related reporting — the construction sites (Rostock's Werftdreieck), the zoo's Darwineum, the BID Passagenviertel's 15 years in Hamburg, the Miniatur Wunderland's 25 years. The columns: the various voices — the lifestyle, the jobs. The portal's event calendar: the XXL Party in the Kaiserkeller, the Meute concert at the Kulturwerft Gollan, the Zaz concert at the Stadtpark Freilichtbühne — the cities' dates browsable by day and city. The calendar's granularity — the date, the event, the venue, the city — is the service journalism's precision: the readers planning the week, the venues filling the halls. The photo galleries — the parties' and concerts' pictures — are the magazine's visual memory: the nights documented, the scenes celebrated. The city news — the Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock and Schwerin items — keep the portal current between the monthly print issues: the digital's daily rhythm complementing the print's monthly. The journalism is the city magazine's: the service-oriented, the young, the nightlife-near.

Organization and Ownership

piste is published as a franchise object — the regional editions by the regional editorial offices under the common brand; the publisher is stated as "diverse" (various). The regional editorial offices — the Hamburg, Lübeck, Schwerin, Rostock and Neubrandenburg teams — produce the local content: the cities' nights and cultures covered by the locals who know them. The Lübecker Nachrichten origin — the supplement's growth — anchors the brand in Lübeck. The commercial model is the free magazine's: the advertising financing — the cities' clubs, bars, cinemas, shops and the regional businesses buying the ads — the 121,000 distributed copies' gratis distribution. The advertisers — the nightlife's venues, the culture's organisers, the cities' retailers — buy the young urban audience's attention: the free magazine's pages as the cities' commercial forum. The readers — the northern German cities' young urban audiences: the 18-to-35-year-olds, the students, the club-goers, the culture enthusiasts — receive the magazine gratis: the night's guide, the culture's calendar, the cities' companion. Detailed publisher, editor and ownership information for the current franchise structure is not publicly confirmed in the sources available.

Digital Presence

The magazine's portal is piste.de — "Dein Stadtmagazin, Termine, Fotos, News & more!" — with the regional editions' news, the event calendar, the photo galleries, the five cities' digital home. The portal's 2026 content — the Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock and Schwerin news and dates — shows the brand's continued operation. In the northern German city-magazine landscape piste occupies the free franchise-magazine pole: the 1984-founded Lübeck brand — the five cities' editions, the 121,000 copies, the nightlife and culture — in print and on piste.de, for the northern German cities' young audiences. The free-magazine positioning — the gratis distribution against the paid city magazines — defines the business: the readers' attention sold to the advertisers, the 121,000 copies' reach monetised. The franchise positioning — the five regional editions against the single-city titles — defines the scale: the northern German brand's network effects, the advertisers' multi-city buys. The 1984 founding — the Lübecker Nachrichten supplement's emancipation — is the brand's origin story: the newspaper insert that outgrew its host, the free magazine's independence.