Hurricane Lives Up To Name

Another wet Hurricane Festival had promoter Folkert Koopmans wondering if he’d chosen a bad name for his 70,000-capacity event at Sheessel, Germany. 

Hurricane and its twinned Southside Festival, a 60,000-capacity event on a private airport at Neuhausen ob Eck, both sold out their slightly increased capacities.

“It was typical Hurricane weather,” Koopmans told Pollstar.

In fairness to Hurricane, Koopmans’ last big problem with the weather came at Southside in 2010.

He was close to canceling the event but managed to rescue it by having engineers put down 4-square-metre panels and more than 500 cubic meters of bark chippings.

This year the rain set in a couple of days before Hurricane (June 21-23) opened, making it difficult to get vehicles on to a muddy site.

After that the weather improved but the weekend was still punctuated by intermittent showers.

The Southside crowd was untroubled by the weather and enjoyed four rain-free days.

Next up for Koopmans’ FKP Scorpio is Bravalla Festival June 27-29, its new Swedish festival, which has already sold 45,000 tickets.

The Hurricane and Southside lineups included Rammstein, Queens Of The Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, Deichkind, Billy Talent, Paul Kalkbrenner, Sigur Ros, Portishead, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Gaslight Anthem.