Hultsfred Festival

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hultsfredsfestivalen

Location(s)	Hultsfred, Sweden
Years active	1986 - present
Date(s)	Three days, third week of June
Genre(s)	Alternative rock, Pop, Hip Hop, Metal, World music

Hultsfred Festival (Swedish: Hultsfredsfestivalen) is an annual music festival held in Hultsfred, Sweden. It takes place during three days in the middle of June, from Thursday to Saturday, with camping available from the beginning of the week. Since the first festival in 1986, its attendance has increased from less than 7000 visitors per year to nearly 30,000 people paying to enter in 2005.

With its seven different stages, the Hultsfred Festival hosts a large number of bands per year (159 in 2005) from all over Scandinavia and the world alike. Notable musical acts that have played in the past include bob hund, David Bowie, The Hives, kent, Radiohead, Sigur Rós, NIN, Marilyn Manson,Snoop Dogg and The Strokes.

[edit] Controversies

At the 1999 festival, a 19-year-old woman was crushed to death during a concert with Hole. Courtney Love, the singer of the band, had told security that she would let three members of the audience up on stage after the third song. Yet after only two songs, she reportedly told people to get up on stage, making the audience surge forward. In total about fifty members of the audience made it up on stage, despite security's efforts to keep them behind the picket fences. After the concert, the 19-year-old was found unconscious some fifty metres from the stage, and by the time she arrived at the hospital, she was already dead.^[1] Since this tragic event, the festival has seen a considerable increase in security.

In 2006, the festival booked Babyshambles, the band fronted by Pete Doherty. Because of Doherty's widely reported drug addiction, the arrangers of the festival were criticised even before the festival had begun, as the festival profiles itself as being anti-drugs. The arrangers defended the booking by saying that the band was booked for its music and not its members' personal lives. Babyshambles was slated to go on at 1:15 A.M. the second day, but when the band arrived at Arlanda Airport where they were going to transfer to a private plane to Hultsfred, Pete Doherty was reported to have been noticeably under the influence. Doherty was detained by the Swedish customs for two hours, before being taken to a waiting plane. The band arrived in Hultsfred at 1:59 A.M. and were immediately rushed to the festival. They finally came on at 2:30 A.M., more than an hour late. The following concert was wild and somewhat bizarre, with Doherty attacking photographers, throwing a guitar at the audience and finally falling off stage in a failed attempt at stage diving. Immediately after the concert Doherty was arrested by the Hultsfred police and fined for drug possession.^[2] After being released, Doherty and Babyshambles returned to Stockholm and the same night made an unscheduled performance at night club Debaser in exchange for, according to club manager Jonas Fläckerud, "a couple of beers." This concert also went awry, with Doherty having to be forcibly removed from stage after falling down and injuring his back. After leaving the club, Doherty took a taxi to Gamla Stan where he suddenly pulled off his clothes and started chasing women down the street.^[3] Doherty's actions in Hultsfred and in Stockholm were intensely followed by the Swedish media. After the festival was over, the arrangers issued a press release where they claimed that Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet had delayed the concert by recklessly following Doherty's car in Hultsfred, speeding and driving side by side with it on the narrow road in order to get pictures of Doherty.^[4] Aftonbladet swiftly sent an e-mail to the arrangers, refuting the claims and calling them "unbelievable".^[5]