Party’s Over At Skive

Although it pulled about 2,500 per day fewer than last year’s 24,500 sold-out crowd, Skive Festival organiser Knud Bjerre says he’s still confident it was the right move to change the Danish festival’s name and musical styles.

“Of course I would have loved to have sold out again, but ticket sales have been slow in a long cold winter and the changes have forced us to increase the ticket price,” he explained.

Formerly called Skive Beach Party, and with a policy of booking pop and party bands, the new Skive Festival is trying to become an international rock bash like the bigger Roskilde and Skanderborg festivals.

“We have the advantage of being able to offer a Wednesday or a Thursday slot to acts that are going on to play the weekend at Germany’s Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park Festivals, so we know there will be the right acts for this type of festival,” Bjerre told Pollstar.

“These acts tend to be more expensive than the ones that we used to bring here for the beach party, although I think the new format will be well-received when people get used to it,” he said. “I want to see Skive present the sort of festival in June that Roskilde and Skanderborg do in July and August.”

This year Rammstein, White Lies, Rise Against, and The Gossip were among the bands stopping on the northern Danish coast on their way to Germany. Skive also began running an electronic stage for the first time.

The other acts on the June 2-5 bill included Green Day, Fredde le Grand, Nephew, Dizzy Mizz Lizzy, The Raveonettes, Mika and Mew.