Roskilde Festival's Closing Email

The Roskilde Festival logo is of its biggest stage "The Orange Stage".
The festival started in 1971 and they got the stage in 1978.
It had been used by The Rolling Stones on their europe tour in 1976.  
Roskilde Festival has been sending me updates throughout the year and as one of the only news-email-letters I've skimmed it with enthusiasm every time. I love getting a quick update on the latest news on which bands would be playing for 2011 and so on. But the last email for this year which I received this morning really touched my heart. Since I wasn't able to attend the festival for the 1st time in 14 years, I've been looking excited at friends' photos and videos of the festival, and this together with this last email really made me feel like I got an impression of how it went. I can't wait to look up the artists that they wrote about or the artists that friends were amazed by.


Here is an explanation of the most interesting facts from the email mixed with some of my knowledge of the festival. To read the full article in Danish press here and in English press here: 


  • The festival was sold out with 130.000 people attending including volunteers and 1,8 mill. dollars over budget for charity. 
  • A girl jumped out from or accidentally fell down from a tower and died. Some call it suicide, others call it an accident. The festival has focused extra on security since the 2001 accident where a crowd at a concert pushed people forward and 9 people died. (The festival is overall known for its peaceful party atmosphere and it's extremely low amount of violence compared to the density of people in one place and the amount of alcohol consumed). 
  • Bands that were mentioned in the articles that gave a great performance: the electronic band Nicolas Jaar, the melo-metallic band Ghost (Sweden) and the hiphop band OFWGKTA (where Tyler, The Creator performed in a wheel chair because of a broken leg). 
  • Artists that were amazed by the Roskilde Festival audience: Chalres Bradley who shed a tear and hugged the front audience, M.I.A. who said "This one is really gonna be hard to top" at the concert and Deadmau5 who wrote on his facebook-page: "I pretty much have no words to describe this one, if you were there, you know. <3 so much Denmark!"
  • It rained 14 mm throughout the festival and 100-200 m3 of sawdust was spread out. 
  • Volunteers gathered trash and recycled and raised a big amount of money for charity.


I hope all of my family and friends all had a wonderful festival and to all you who haven't been there yet - go one year.. You'll love it. It's 4 days of fun camping and partying and the after that 4 days of music and fun in the main area (while still camping of course). It takes place the weekend closest to july 1st.