The first festival in Scheeßel took place on 8 and 9 September 1973 and was called "Es rockt in der Heide" (English: It's rocking in the heath).

The 1977 festival, this time called First Rider Open Air, which took place on 3 and 4 September incurred damage costs of 1.5 Million when the organiser who realised during the planning stages that it wouldn't be possible to pay the bands, ran off with the rest of the money.

Dutch band Long Tall Ernie & The Shakers opened on the first night which then ended with Golden Earring playing their song Radar Love.

In addition to those already mentioned bands Van der Graaf Generator and Colosseum II and British progressive rock group Camel also performed.

With the help of a local company, the event organiser Folkert Koopmans (FKP Scorpio) succeeded in convincing the Scheeßel city administration to resume the festival.

Around 20.000 people attended the first Hurricane Festival on 21 and 22 June 1997 where the headliners were Rammstein, INXS and Bad Religion; the event did not make any profit.

Since there were 9.000 more attendees than expected who wanted to stay over night on the site, land from the neighbouring farm was converted last minute to camping grounds.

Gusts with wind force of 11 and rainfall up to 30 litres per square metre meant the festival had to be abandoned and damaged numerous tents and pavilions.

Parts of the camping area was knee high under water and therefore led many attendees to find emergency shelter in the disco tent.

In 2011 a mobile phone charging service was offered to campers with no source of electricity as a form of advertising and attracted long queues and in the same year a "Green" camping area was also available for the first time.

The design is used: to display on the stage screen when no acts are performing; as the wallpaper for the Hurricane-App and on the internet; as well as in many places around the festival grounds on banners.

According to the organisers this was due to the strong competition from other festivals that year and the subsequent weaker headliner line-up (Placebo, Florence + the Machine, Materia).

[8] The event organisers were particularly aware after a lightning strike injured 21 people at the festival Rock am Ring, which was then terminated early.

[9] (lineups partly differ from Southside) White Stage: Fritz Kalkbrenner, Steve Aoki, Sebastian, Beardyman, Busy P, Bassnectar, Azari & III, Supershirt, Bratze, Dumme Jungs