Like Father Like Son

Twelve-year-old Daniel Koopmans is clearly taking after his father Folkert when it comes to making money at German festivals.

He spent Die Ärtze’s headline set at Highfield crawling through the audience and collecting drink cups, making euro 19 out of the refunds.

After paying a one-euro deposit for a cup, most festivalgoers return them. But apparently some don’t.

As more festivals adopt the green incentive of offering cash to those who collect the discarded cups, next summer Daniel will probably want to crawl around at the half-dozen or so outdoors his father’s FKP Scorpio promotes or co-promotes in Germany, plus the others he shares in Austria, Switzerland, Croatia and Slovakia.

The 25,000-capacity Highfield site at the Hohenfelden Reservoir near Erfurt sold out well in advance, making it a record-breaking year for Koopmans’ Hamburg-based company.

The twinned Hurricane and Southside festivals, with a combined capacity of 120,000, both sold out. At press time the 25,000-capacity Chiemsee Reggae Summer August 22-24 appeared close to doing the same.

The August 9-10 M’Era Luna Goth festival did 23,000 per day, 5,000 up on last year.

Elsewhere, Austria’s 55,000-capacity Nova Rock, which Scorpio co-promotes with Nova Music, and the 40,000-capacity Frequency, co-promoted with MusicNet, also sold out.

Bad weather in the two weeks leading up to the event meant the 25,000-capacity Nuke Festival, another Austrian co-promotion with MusicNet, was a bit of a disappointment. At 16,000 per day, the crowd was about 2,500 down on last year.

The fourth edition of Switzerland’s Greenfield Festival set a new record by pulling 24,000 each day.

The two smaller festivals Koopmans has a share in had mixed fortunes. Hodokvas in Slovakia, which he and Austrian promoter Nova Music became involved in last year, failed to do 10,000. But Radar Festival in Croatia almost doubled its first year’s crowd by selling 13,000 tickets.

With two German co-promotions to come – the 25,000-capacity Area 4 (August 29-31) and Rock am See (August 30) festivals – sales for the festivals Scorpio’s involved with are shifting toward the 400,000 mark.

The acts helping boost the ticket count and Koopmans Junior’s recycling business at Highfield August 15-17 also included The Killers, Gogol Bordello, Flogging Molly, The Hives, Sportfreunde Stiller, Plain White T’s and Dropkick Murphys.