Tokio Hotel WW144 (A 12 km long letter!)

Heavy mail for Bill & Co.

Jennifer Hefti and her sister Samantha have written a fan-letter to Tokio Hotel. A fan-letter, which almost made world record history. It’s just a shame that Bill & Co. don’t want to have it.

Whoever enters Jennifer’s room knows straight away for which pop band her heart beats - Whether it’s the bright orange clock with Bill Kaulitz on the dial, the affectionately spread fan scarf over on the sofa or both the picture frames of Bill and Tom which watch Jennifer at work on the computer right and left of the desk. The internationally successful East German band has a place everywhere in this “Tokio Hotel”. Even so, her most extreme fan phase is behind the Wohlen resident. She says: “Before, all the walls were taped with posters of Tokio Hotel.”

Not until you take a second glance at the back part of her room, under the slanted roof, do you truly understand how great the now-18-year-old’s passion for Tokio Hotel must be, or at least was. There, you’d find probably the longest fan-letter in Switzerland: An unbelievable 12-kilometer-letter lies there, distributed across a total of nine almost inconspicuous paper piles. You don’t realize roughly how long this letter really is until Jennifer spreads out some of the sheets admiring Tokio Hotel in writing on the floor. Jennifer, her sister Samantha, as well as 10-15 helpers wrote the letter together.

“The father’s idea”

“We began it on April 30th 2006 and it was finished about half a year later,” explains Jennifer. And yet, it’s not her first letter which could cover entire streets. Both sisters had already previously composed literary post to Bill & Co. At that time, they ‘only’ reached 1.4 km. “But after that brought nothing, my father said, ‘then write another 12 kilometers’. We don’t want to stop until we meet the boys,” reasons Jennifer of her enthusiasm for writing. Other than that, they want to break the world record. But, “we had to have written 13 kilometers. There already is a 12-kilometer-letter to The Beatles”.

However, neither of them plans on continuing the letter. “The ideas aren’t there anymore,” says Jennifer, “but if it were demanded, we would do it,” she accepts with cunning smile.

Management are not interested about the letter

Although the girls had already contacted the management and the Tokio-boys’ German record companies multiple times, the response was always negative. “They said they’re not interested,” says Jennifer, “and the record companies didn’t associate with us again once.”

Of course, questioning what the four German boys who conquered the world of teenagers worldwide should do with 12,000 meters of poems, photo-collages and text is justified. But Jennifer is realistic enough to know that Bill & Co. would never read the whole letter through. Therefore, it’s also up to them “to set an example” in just the first line, so that Tokio Hotel recognize that their fans in German Switzerland support them.

Deadline July 2008

Both sisters still want to make one last attempt to finally submit the letter to the band on the occasion of Tokio Hotel’s concert in Geneva this year. And if it goes badly again? “Then we might throw them away or burn them. After all, the postage costs would be much too high if we were to send the entire letter by post,” reckons Jennifer resignedly. It would be a real shame if this affectionate work of art from Wohlen was to be wasted.