Koopmans Blown Away By Hurricane

Folkert Koopmans says he believes this year’s Hurricane Festival was the best of the 12 he’s promoted, after upping the capacity to 70,000 and still selling out in advance.

"I don’t really have anything to report," the FKP Scorpio chief told Pollstar after the Sheessel site enjoyed three days of sunshine and Germany’s second-largest outdoor passed without incident or mishap.

"We had no problems with the traffic and everything went perfectly well," he explained after Hurricane coped with the hundreds of extra cars that resulted from the event letting in 10,000 more people than last year.

Koopmans spent the weekend at Sheessel but says the reports he’s been getting from Hurricane’s smaller twin, the 50,000-capacity Southside Festival at Neuhausen ob Eck, suggest that it also had a bumper weekend.

The 120,000 tickets sold across the two sites June 20-22 have given a very solid boost to the Hamburg-based company’s festival season, which began with successful outdoors in Switzerland, Austria and Croatia.

FKP Scorpio co-promotes Switzerland’s Greenfield Festival (June 13-15), which pulled a record-breaking 24,000 per day; Austria’s 55,000-capacity Nova Rock, which sold out over the same weekend; and the new Radar Festival in Croatia June 13, which almost doubled its first year crowd by selling 13,000 tickets.

The acts ensuring Koopmans was blown away by the success of Hurricane and Southside included Foo Fighters, The Chemical Brothers, Kaiser Chiefs, Radiohead, Beatsteaks, Billy Talent, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, British Sea Power, Calexico, Does it Offend You, Yeah?, The Kooks, Panic At The Disco, Razorlight, Rodrigo y Gabriela and Sigur Ros.