The FM4 Frequency Festival, also Frequency Festival or just Frequency, formerly Vienna City Festival, is a music festival that took place near Salzburg until 2008 Austria, usually every August. In 2009 the Festival moved to St. Pölten. It is promoted by one of Austria's national radio stations, FM4, and is generally associated with the alternative part of mainstream music. The lineups accumulate acts of various genres such as rock, electronica and hip hop, usually covering great parts of the German and Austrian alternative, indie and guitar pop scenes, but also featuring well-known international top-acts.
The festival was established in 2001. The first year it took place as a rather small event featuring six artists on each of the two days of the festival, which were Friday, the 8th and Saturday, the 9th of June. Musicnet, the company that organizes the Frequency festival, rented the open air stage of the Arena Wien, one of Vienna's leading concert locations. The festival, called Vienna City Festival at that time, became an instant success - not only financially, but it was also very much liked by the audience. This quickly lead to the decision of moving it to another location, which would also feature camping facilities.
For 2002's festival the Salzburgring, normally used as a motor-bike racetrack, was selected. Salzburg was an optimal choice, since it is both centrally situated within Austria and can also easily be reached from Germany. It's also close to the A1, Austria's main autobahn, and is surrounded by grass fields that can be used as camping and parking facilities. The festival scored over 10,000 guests on both days (14 and 15 June) and featured nearly 40 bands on two stages - one open-air (Main Stage) and one tent (Alternastage).
2003 was both a success and a disappointment. One of the major Austrian concert organizers–promoters and business rivals of Musicnet, Wiesen, who are also in charge of famous Austrian festivals like the Jazz Fest, Forestglade and Two Days A Week, decided to have Metallica perform in the stadium of Salzburg, only about 20 km away from the Salzburgring, on the second day of the Frequency festival. Musicnet feared loss of audience due to the Metallica concert and after several days of negotiation, Metallica were booked to headline the second day of the FM4 Frequency festival, bringing their tour support Alien Ant Farm as well as their huge fan base along. Remaining tickets were sold out immediately and the festival was massively overrun. Over 45,000 tickets were sold for both 14 and 15 August, but it is estimated that between 55,000 and 60,000 people attended the Metallica day in the end. Organization was devastating as the masses could not be handled by the security personnel. Logistic and sanitary problems were the result and it was seen by many critics as a miracle that there were almost no serious injuries and not even a single death. Even Musicnet thanked the audience for being disciplined as they were and not panicking when they were stuck in the masses. According to many guests the situation was critical during a rain shower, when the audience was seeking shelter under the tent. It is rumoured that financially the festival was more of a break-even business than a success and Musicnet has refused to supply any information regarding this.
2004 was the back to the roots year, with 40 bands playing on 13 and 14 August. Many fans of the original Frequency festival were disappointed about it becoming just another huge mainstream festival, and so Musicnet tried to reestablish the situation of 2002. Not mainly by allowing less attendance, although ticket contingents were limited now, but by expanding the area and replacing the tent stage by a second open air stage. Indeed the result was an overall success, which was partly because of a cooperation with FKP Scorpio, producers of big German festivals like Southside, Hurricane and Highfield. The festival was overshadowed by a huge storm with winds up to 140 km/h during the first night and constant, intense rain showers during the second day. This severe storm that lasted 25 hours without respite caused many guests to leave early.
2005 suffered from typical problems of Austrian festivals of that year: On the one hand, many last-minute cancellations of band performances, but on the other mainly grasslands getting flooded by rain that had lasted weeks already before the festival began and that largely continued during the festival too. Besides making it virtually impossible to walk through the - at times more than 50 cm deep - mud on the camping sites and on the way to the stages, almost all cars had to be towed to the road by tractors on departure, because they could not move on the parking sites that were exclusively on grassland. Furthermore, the rain was the final reason why a bridge connecting the inner race track (where the main stage is) with the outer race track (where the camping sites are accessible from) collapsed on the evening of the second day. 31 people were injured, although none seriously, but a panic could be averted, mainly thanks to the coincidence that the Red Cross tent was very close to the bridge. The organisers very quickly secured and illuminated the area and arranged pathways for ambulances to come in and pick up the injured. Despite harsh criticism, it later turned out the organisers were not directly guilty of the event. They had hired a construction company that built the fundament of materials not suitable for outdoor use, unlike what had been agreed on. Pioneers of the Federal Armed Forces of Austria (the Bundesheer) constructed a replacement bridge out of aluminium and steel that very night, so that it could be used on the remaining, third day.
In 2006, 43 bands performed on 17 and 18 August. As an exception the festival lasted only for two days and the headliners were Muse and Franz Ferdinand. The audience generally felt that the organisation was better than in years past; amongst other things, a new (wider, fixed) pathway between the festival area and camping area was established. Due to the mostly hot weather, there was an unusually high amount of collapses and a lot more blue light transports to hospitals than normally. Except for one (Brakes was exchanged for Mauf), there were no last-minute cancellations. Altogether, most visitors agreed that this incarnation was a very comfortable and enjoyable one.
In 2007, Die Ärzte, Nine Inch Nails, The Kaiser Chiefs, Seeed, the unnamed band who does The Good, the Bad and the Queen, !!! and MIA., Billy Talent performed between 15 and 17 August. One of the most talked about sets of the festival was that of Nine Inch Nails, in which they were booked between Die Ärzte and The Beatsteaks, meaning that they were booked between two German bands and, as a result, were forced to play in front of a crowd who came to see both bands and saw NIN as an interval act. Many people in attendance were sitting on the floor and spoke into their cellphones while the band were performing. This caused Trent Reznor to ask the crowd why they were there, and who they were going to see, before asking the crowd if they were booked between two German bands. Some people in the crowd chanted for NIN, with Trent then asking why they were there looking bored as if they'd rather be somewhere else. At the end of the show the band, while kicking around an amp, intentionally destroyed a camera.
Reznor later posted on NIN's forum that it was their worst show of the tour, with the worst audience. However, many NIN fans say that the frustration and anger the band experienced enabled them to show more aggression in their performance.
Until then, the Festival has only ever had up to four stages: the Race Stage and the Green Stage as the two big main stages, an Open Stage for which people can apply to show their talent, and an Elektro Tent that opened only in the late hours of the evening and where the party went on until the early hours of the morning.
But in 2008 a new stage was added to enrich the variety of music genres - The Weekender UK Stage. It was hosted by the record label Weekender Records from the UK and their sister company Weekender Records Germany. Most of the bands that performed on the stage had releases by either of those labels though artists such as Lightspeed Champion, The Teenagers and White Lies were invited to perform as guests. The stage was located inside a large tent that transformed into the Elektro Tent from 11:00 pm.
In order of time the lineup featured the bands: The Sugars, Kristoffer Ragnstam, Lightspeed Champion, Look See Proof, The Teenagers, 1984, Sparkadia, White Lies, Kingsize, The Indelicates, The Lines, The Lea Shores, Red Light Company, The Rocks and Eight Legs.
Chikinki who are out on Weekener Records Germany played on the Race stage. Though they were unlucky to be the first band that played at the entire festival, their show was a big success.