Dour Creeps Closer To Sellout

Dour Festival continued to back its claim to be “The European Alternative Music Event” by shifting 134,000 tickets across four days.

That’s still a couple of thousand short of a sellout, but this year the festival re-jigged the site to make room for more people.

After selling a record 130,000 tickets across the four days of last year’s event, which benefitted from a big increase in the number of visitors from France, Holland and the U.K., the festival’s marketing department has embarked on something of a re-branding strategy.

Instead of being “The Belgian Alternative Music Event,” Dour has a new slogan that proclaims it as “The European Alternative Music Event.”

Festival press officer Sophie Chevalier said the numbers are rising because there are more visitors from outside Belgium – hence the re-branding, with as much as one-third of this year’s audience coming from France, Holland and the U.K.

Among the acts bringing an international flavor to the small village midway between Brussels and the northern French town of Lille July 13-16 were Mercury Rev, Primal Scream, Wir Sind Helden, The Dandy Warhols, The Datsuns, Apocolyptica, Maximo Park, and Art Brut.

– John Gammon