Skive Downsizes

Competing with the major Danish festivals didn’t pay off for Skive Festival (June 5-8), which is now one-third of the size it was five years ago.

In 2009 it pulled a record-breaking 24,500-capacity sellout crowd, but the talent budget was more than the event at the base of Salling Peninsula could stand.

The following year a bill that included Green Day, Rammstein, and White Lies failed to match that attendance and some of the Danish national papers reported that it had dropped $1 million.

This year a bill that included Volbeat, Turboweekend, Skunk Anansie, Mads Langer, Loreen, Rasmus Seebach, and D-A-D did 9,000 per day.

A week earlier, Jelling Music Festival, about 200 kilometres west of Copenhagen close to the Østjyske Highway and the Central Jutland Motorway, did a little more than 20,000 per day. The May 28-31 lineup included Bryan Adams, Volbeat, Nephew, Rasmus Seebach, Alphabeat, Mads Langer, and The Rumour Said Fire.