Roskilde Festival

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Roskilde Festival
Image:Roskilde festival 27-6-2003.JPG
Location(s)	Roskilde, Denmark
Years active	1971 - present
Date(s)	Four days, starting from last Thursday in June
Genre(s)	Alternative rock, Pop, Hip Hop, Metal, World music

Roskilde Festival is held south of Roskilde in Denmark and is one of the two biggest annual rock music festivals in Europe (the other being the Glastonbury festival). It was created in 1971 by two high school students, Mogens Sandfær and Jesper Switzer Møller, and promoter Carl Fischer. In 1973, 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 2006 had more than 170 performing bands and gathered more than 79,000 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.

[edit] Camping society

The Roskilde Festival area is divided into two parts: The festival site, where the music and most of the stalls are, and the camping site, where people have their tents. The festival's camping areas are located around "agoras", also known as towers, which are spots where people can cook, party and meet each other. Each agora has a special theme which contributes to the festival life. The offers range from dating services to swimming lakes and radio broadcasting.

[edit] The naked race

For the last 8 years a famous race have emerged at the festival. Saturday is the day of the race. The race(*)features approximately 20 runners, 50/50 of both genders, and the winner is the first who runs 3 laps around the radio building in full naked splendour. The first prize is a ticket to the next year's festival. In 2006 the race was watched by approximately 10.000 people.

Facts based on Roskilde 2006

Trying to catch a glimpse at the Arena Stage

The tents are called 'stages', which 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 18.000 people.

The music covers such styles as Heavy metal, HipHop, Electronic and Rock, but the festival wants to promote new artists and has setup a special stage for alternative music. It has also become a tradition to let an up and coming Danish band open the Orange Stage on the first day of the festival. There's always a stage for world music, not too big, but strategically located, so that people passing by will stop and learn something new. And there's usually at least one performance of classical music, often a full orchestra playing (parts of) well-known compositions.

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.

Until the mid-1990's 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 Scots). A Scandinavian alternative remained in the Midtfyns Festival, until that closed in 2004 following declining ticket sales.

Tragedy struck the festival in 2000 when nine people died in an accident in front of the main (Orange) stage during the Pearl Jam performance. It was a rainy muddy day, the 9 people slipped over because the crowd surged forward and they were crushed to death. As a result, massive security measures were installed for the festival in 2001. After the tragedy, 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".

[edit] Specific years

[edit] 2003

Very hot indeed. Sun shining every day. 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.

[edit] 2004

Rain, rain, thunder, rain, a ray of light and lots of mud. 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 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<ref>Roskilde Festival Website.</ref> 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. For a complete list, see the Festival website's band list.

[edit] External links

Festivals in Denmark	Image:Flag of Denmark.svg
Roskilde Festival \| Skanderborg Festival \| Midtfyns Festival \| Aarhus Festuge \| Spot \| Aarhus Jazz Festival \| Copenhagen Jazz Festival \| Copenhagen Pride \| Danmarks grimmeste festival \| Langelands Festival \| Vig Festival \| Nibe Festival \| Skagen Festival \| Tønder Festival