Northside To Hit Targets

German promoter Folkert Koopmans and Danish partner Brian Nielsen may well see their new Northside Festival hit its targets by selling out its 15,000-capacity in advance.

Last year’s Northside was their first – a one-dayer that mainly featured Danish acts and pulled 5,000 to a rain-soaked 8,000-capacity site at Tangkrogen.

It was intended as the first step toward building a festival of at least 30,000 capacity and international talent. This year, Koopmans and Nielsen have beefed up the bill by booking Elbow, Suede, White Lies and Band Of Horses.

When the 2010 event was launched, Koopmans said he believes the Danish market can take another festival of that size. He produces or co-produces nearly a dozen German festivals and has major events in Switzerland and Sweden.

Northside’s also moved to a new site at Aadalen, a couple of miles from the centre of Århus, the country’s second-biggest city and home to its biggest university.

The site is parkland owned by the local authority, although the police occasionally use part of it for dog training. It also has the potential to stage festivals much bigger than the one Koopmans and Nielsen have planned for this summer.

“Last year we were disappointed with the presale but the weather was really terrible during the weeks leading up to the festival,” Nielsen explained. “I expected it to take five or six years to build Northside into an international festival, but now we’re right on track to do it sooner than that.”

He said this year’s entertainment budget is triple the size of last year’s, but he expects it to be even higher next year as this year’s sellout would mean the festival’s capacity can be increased.

Other acts on the Northside bill June 11-12 include Interpol, Crystal Castles, Thomas Dybdahl, The Streets, Tina Dickow, The Naked And Famous, Editors, The Vaccines and Turboweekend.