Making Changes In Stages

It’s a moot point as to how many London agents will bother trying to wrap their heads around it, but Roskilde Festival’s Ballroom and Metropol stages will be replaced by the Astoria and Cosmopol stages.

"After 10 successful years, the festival says goodbye to Roskilde Ballroom. Since 1997, the stage has offered some of the biggest surprises at Roskilde Festival and has contributed to changing the audience’s view on world music. But now the time has come for trying new things," a festival press release helpfully explains.

As for the replacement: "Roskilde Astoria has room for new forms of expression and display – both in the range of music and in the design of the stage tent.

"‘Delicate’ and intimate acts play in the daytime, while the late hours present a club stage with energetic parties in the closed tent. Roskilde Astoria makes room for intimacy between artists and the audience," the statement continued.

The festival says dropping the Ballroom’s world music stage doesn’t mean Roskilde’s dropping world music, as it will still be dotted on stages all over the site.

The new Cosmopol stage, according to the press release, will have "music from the big city and the underground," which it explains as "hip hop, dancehall, grime, R&B, urban world music, neo soul and music from the more organic electronic scene."

Each year, Roskilde makes some adjustments to the various music stages. Last year, the big sound tower in front of the Orange Stage was moved, and this year it is time to freshen up the contents and designs on two of the festival’s other stages.

This year’s festival is July 5-8.