Roskilde Festival
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| Roskilde Festival | |
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| Location(s) | Roskilde, Denmark |
| Years active | 1971 – present |
| Founded by | Mogens Sandfær, Jesper Switzer Møller (at that time Magnussen), and promotor Carl Fischer[1] |
| Date(s) | Four days, starting from first Thursday in July |
| Genre(s) | Alternative rock, Pop, Hip Hop, Metal, World music, Electronic music |
| Website | www.roskilde-festival.com |
Roskilde Festival is held south of Roskilde in Denmark and is one of the three biggest annual rock music festivals in Europe (the other two being the Sziget Festival and the Glastonbury Festival). It was created in 1971 by two high school students, Mogens Sandfær and Jesper Switzer Møller, and promoter Carl Fischer[1]. In 1972, the festival was taken over by the Roskilde Foundation, who has since run the festival as a non-profit organisation for development and support of music, culture, and humanism.
It being Denmark's first real music oriented festival, originally for hippies but today covering more of the mainstream youth from Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Roskilde Festival 2007 had more than 180 performing bands and gathered around 80,000 people paying for the concerts, more than 21,000 volunteers, 5,000 media people and 3,000 artists — which means almost 110,000 people participated in the festival.
Traditionally the campsite opens the last Sunday of June, which gives the festivalguests plenty of time to settle down and "warm up". The festival officially starts the following Thursday at the Animal Showgrounds (in recent years simply known as the "Festival Site") and lasts for 4 days.
Until the mid-1990s the festival attracted mostly Scandinavians, but in recent years it has become more and more international (with an especially large influx of Germans, Australians and Brits). A Scandinavian alternative remained in the Midtfyns Festival, until that closed in 2004 following declining ticket sales.
[edit] Stages
The bands presented at Roskilde Festival are traditionally a balanced mix of large well known artists in the absolute live elite, cutting-edge artists from all contemporary genres, popular crowd-pleasing acts plus local Scandinavian headliners and up-and-coming names. The special Roskilde feeling is in particular ensured by stages located inside large tents, covering an enthusiastic music-loving audience. As opposed to most other European festivals all bands play "real" concerts lasting for at least an hour.
The stages were until 2003 named after their colour, but as the names had not matched the actual colour of the tents for a period, it was decided to rename all stages except the Orange Stage, the central and main stage. The Orange Stage is open in front of a huge field, whereas the other tents cover the whole audience, the largest of which is the Arena stage (formerly known as Green Stage), the largest tent in Europe with an official capacity of 17,000 people. The 2007 edition saw two new tents, replacing Ballroom (1997–2006) which presented mainly World music, and Metropol (2003–2006) which presented mainly Electronica.
The music covers such styles as rock, Hip Hop, Metal, urban, electronica and 3rd world contemporary music. It has become a tradition to let an up-and-coming Danish band open the Orange Stage on the first day of the festival. There's often surprising performances by classical acts, film-music, opera etc.
Apart from music there is always some theatre and 'lone acts' wandering around the festival site. Terrain and tents are always decorated in various ways. The current tents are:
| Stage name | Year introduced | Capacity | Main genres | Replaced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orange | 1978 | 60,000+ | All | Big Stage |
| Arena | 2003 | 17,000 | All | Green Stage |
| Cosmopol | 2007 | 6,000 | Hip Hop, R&B, Urban world music | Metropol |
| Odeon | 2003 | 5,000 | Mixed, mostly rock-ish | Yellow Stage |
| Astoria | 2007 | 3,000 | Singersong writers, electronica, experimental | Ballroom |
| Pavilion | 2003 | 2,000 | Mixed, mostly rock-ish | Blue Stage |
| Other | ||||
| Pavilion Junior | 2005 | 2,000 | Mixed - only up and coming acts | Camp Stage |
| Lounge |
[edit] Campsite
The festival campsite covers nearly 80 hectares and access to it is included in the ticket price. It usually opens on Sunday morning prior to the festival itself. Apart from the small and separate Camping South it is divided into two areas, East and West, each comprising a service center with establishments ranging from food stalls to a cinema. The campsite is further divided into 'agoras' that provide toilets, cell phone charging and luggage storage. They also host events according to each agora's theme: dance, skate, swim etc.
Over the most recent years, the opening of the campsite has turned into an event of its own, as getting an attractive place for your tent seems to be increasingly important to people. And this has only been increased by the fact that large areas of the campsite each year is turned into gravel pits.
Thousands of people arrive during Saturday (some even arrive several days before), to wait (and party) in the queue until Sunday morning at 8 a.m. when the gates to the campsite officially open. Due to this, the festival has introduced temporary transit areas (in both East and West), making it possible to let all these thousands of people get in at the same time. The last couple of years the fences around the transit areas has been knocked down several hours ahead of official opening by festival guests eager to get the spot for their tent that they have in advance thoroughly planned to get.
[edit] Media
Apart from the coverage in everyday media an event of this size gets, Roskilde Festival also has it's own media: A newspaper with 1 daily issue and a radio station broadcasting 24/7 throughout the entire festival, including the initial "warm up" days. Besides playing music and reporting from the concerts and campsite, the festival radio also hosts the annual Naked Run, with a ticket for next years festival at stake. The rules are simple: You have to be the first to cross the finishing line, and you have to be naked. Through the last couple of years, as an attempt to attract other than male contestants, the rules have been changed, so that the first female to cross the line has also gets a ticket.
[edit] 2000 accident
The first disaster in the history of the festival struck on June 30, 2000, when nine people died in an accident in front of the main (Orange) stage during the Pearl Jam performance. Due to sound problems, the audience of 50,000 began shoving amongst themselves in attempting to get closer to the stage. After playing for 45 minutes, singer Eddie Vedder halted the performance in order to address the crowd to step back. However, as the ground was muddy from rain, nine people fell over due to crowd pressure and were trampled; cause of death was suggested to be most likely suffocation. Eight people, from Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands, died at the site; a man from Australia died later on July 5. 30 other people were hospitalized.[2]
Oasis and the Pet Shop Boys, who were scheduled to perform at the main stage, withdrew in response to the deaths. This was criticized by the organizers, who claimed that their absence would cause greater danger by moving crowds from the main stage to other areas. Otherwise, the festival continued as scheduled, and the organizers were not charged by police, who determined the deaths to be an accident. The incident also prompted safety investigations at T in the Park and the Love Parade, other music festivals upcoming at the time.[2]
As a result, massive security measures were installed for the festival in 2001. After the incident, a memorial site was set up close to the main stage. It features 9 trees and a stone inscribed with the words "How fragile we are". This phrase may have been inspired by the Sting song "Fragile".[citation needed]
Pearl Jam's song "Love Boat Captain" references the tragedy with the line "Lost 9 friends we'll never know... 2 years ago today." When performed in concert, Vedder modifies the lyric to reflect the passage of time since the tragedy (as of 2007, the lyric is "7 years ago today").
[edit] Festival by year
[edit] Specific years
[edit] 2003
Sunny. Shows by bands such as Metallica, Blur, Electric Eel Shock, Coldplay, Björk, Massive Attack, The Streets, Iron Maiden, Queens of the Stone Age, Urlaub In Polen, Interpol and 150 more.
[edit] 2004
Rain. The 2004 festival featured artists such as Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Santana, Korn, Pixies, Fatboy Slim, Wu-Tang Clan and Morrissey. David Bowie was scheduled to play at Roskilde 2004 but cancelled due to heart problems, with a notice on his website. Instead, Slipknot, who were on tour in Europe, filled the spot.
[edit] 2005
The 2005 edition featured artists such as Audioslave, Autechre, Snoop Dogg, Black Sabbath, D-A-D, Duran Duran, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Brian Wilson, Fantômas, Kent, Sonic Youth, Interpol and more than 160 other bands and DJs. This year was also a huge contrast to the previous year on the weather front. Hot and sunny all week.
[edit] 2006
With more than 79,000 paying visitors (as well as approximately 20 000 volunteer day workers), the 2006 festival was the biggest in Europe[3] for the year. With only one day of rain and the rest of the week being sunny, this festival also ranks as one with a lucky weather. Changes from last year include a new swimming lake - which proved to be very successful due to the warm and sunny weather - and a lounge stage called Bar'n. Some of the performing artists were Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, Guns N' Roses, Tool, The Strokes, Deftones, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Kanye West, Placebo, Arctic Monkeys, Sigur Rós and the Streets. Danish band Magtens Korridorer opened Orange Stage.
[edit] 2007
Roskilde Festival 2007 turned out to be the wettest one yet, by a rather large margin. Approximately 95 mm of rain fell during the course of the festival, as opposed to 44 mm in 1997, which was the wettest before 2007. Thursday was a day consisting only of rain, ending up with a lot of guests returning from the concerts to find their tents flooded. The organisers stated that it seemed that most of the people who left returned later on enjoyed a somewhat mixed weather experience Friday, and mostly dry, but a bit windy and chilly days on Saturday and Sunday.
The full programme was released on April 19, 2007, and included bands such as Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, Björk, Beastie Boys, My Chemical Romance, Arctic Monkeys, The Who, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers and Tiësto. Danish band Volbeat opened Orange Stage.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b Roskilde Festival homepage about the festival in 1971
- ^ a b Lofthus, Kai R. (July 15, 2000), "Loss of life fails to halt festival", Billboard 112 (29): 10-11
- ^ Roskilde Festival Website.
[edit] External links
- Official website of the Roskilde Festival
- Official community website of the Roskilde Festival
- German fansite
- Roskilde.co.uk - An English website for Roskilde Festival goers.
- English language fans guide to Roskilde Festival
- International fansite with forums and chat
- Sound Generator's massive, super-mega Roskilde 2006 coverage
- Roskilde Festival pictures from 2004
- Roskilde Festival pictures from 2005
- Roskilde Festival pictures from 2006
- Photos from Roskilde Festival 2007
- Pearl Jam's statement following the Roskilde incident in 2000
- Festival radio website
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