Northside Shows Its Upside

German promoter Folkert Koopmans and Danish partner Brian Nielsen are already planning the next step for Northside Festival after this year’s Danish fest sold out its 15,000 capacity.

They have options including upping the capacity of the greenfield site at Aadalen, a couple of miles from the centre of Århus, to 20,000 or incorporating a nearby soccer pitch and growing to 25,000 or 30,000.

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.

The plan was to develop slowly, although Koopmans has always believed the Danish market can accommodate another festival to sit alongside the 50,000-capacity Skanderborg and the 75,000-capacity Roskilde.

This year’s switch to a larger site at Århus, the country’s second-largest city and home to its main university, looks to have accelerated the process.

Koopmans and Nielsen also beefed up this year’s Northside by including more international acts.

The June 11-12 lineup included Elbow, Suede, White Lies, Band Of Horses, Interpol, Crystal Castles, Thomas Dybdahl, Editors, The Vaccines and Turboweekend.

Apart from running almost a dozen festivals in Germany, Koopmans also had Switzerland’s Greenfield Festival over the June 11-13 weekend.

It’s the first major festival of the Swiss summer season and this year sold out its 25,000-capacity with a lineup that included Foo Fighters, Gaslight Anthem, System Of A Down, Volbeat, Social Distortion, Apocalyptica, and Bullet For My Valentine.