Chaos in the parking garage: an additional payment of 7,000 euros causes massive anger!
Parking garage chaos in Erlangen: additional payments of up to 7,000 euros due to defective machines cause frustration. Events affected.

Chaos in the parking garage: an additional payment of 7,000 euros causes massive anger!
Recently, the “Neuer Markt” car park in Franconia has not only been causing frustration among visitors to the Heinrich-Lades-Halle, but also a lot of excitement on social media. There are always problems with the ticket machines, which cause long queues and chaos at events. Christina Burlein, the event manager, speaks of difficulties that have existed for years and have recently reached their peak. The most recent incident made it clear: A machine demanded 7,000 euros in additional payments due to incorrectly dated tickets, which put visitors in an extremely unpleasant position. Many tickets could not even be accepted, which further strained the audience's nerves. According to reports from in Franconia The operating company Contipark showed no understanding for the problems of the guests and staff.
What is particularly annoying is that before the corona pandemic, a person helped to buy tickets, but this position has now been eliminated. At large events, where between 1,000 and 2,000 visitors are usually expected, there are often long waiting times and annoyances. The situation escalated in December 2022 when an annoyed visitor destroyed the parking garage barrier so that he could finally leave.
The quota and internal errors
A solution was found in May 2023: The Heinrich-Lades-Halle agreed with the parking garage to purchase a quota of tickets in order to defuse the situation. Recently, however, Burlein discovered that some of the tickets were dated 2023. When the machine was tested, it promptly demanded an additional payment of 7,000 euros - a real nuisance!
The problems increased on October 9, 2025, when the police had to intervene because the machines again did not accept the tickets and the barrier did not open. On October 12th the situation was no better: the machines were broken, which is why the barrier was opened as a precaution. Contipark spoke of an “internal error” in the coding of the tickets, which had already been fixed. Despite these statements, frustration among visitors remains high, and many hope for quick improvements.
Similar problems in other cities
But the problems with pay machines are not only an issue in Franconia. There were also recently unpleasant waiting times in Dortmund. On April 22, 2024, visitors to the Kuckelke parking garage had to deal with similar difficulties. There were long queues on the sidewalk because only one machine was working and two others were broken. The waiting time was up to 30 minutes and Contipark confirmed that a replacement part was needed for the defective machine. Another machine failed that evening after a wet ticket was inserted. Ruhr24 reported that the operators referred to the defective machines as an unfortunate coincidence and recommended that affected customers contact customer service to request a refund.
Visitors to Cologne's parking garages should now think carefully about when they park their car. Because where machines are defective and technology fails, frustration is inevitable. The hope remains that operators and organizers will soon come up with a proper plan to avoid such unsuccessful situations in the future.