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Day Tickets Swell RFP
The Czech Republic’s Rock For People broke its attendance record by pulling an average of 30,000 per day, largely thanks to one-day tickets sold July 2-5.
The festival didn’t manage to break its own daily record, which was set last year when nearly 32,000 showed for a bill that included Faith No More, Orbital, Skrillex, and The Kooks, but torrential rain and high winds on the other days dragged down the 2012 average.
“Next year, I believe, these one-day people [a little over 50 percent of the crowd] will return for the entire festival,” said festival talent booker Petr Fort. Rock For People director Michal Thomes was impressed with the way more and more visitors are interacting with the four-day event. “More people are coming with their smartphones and using the festival mobile app. This year more than 8,000 people have been using the application in its Android or iOs versions,” he explained.
The festival started in Ceský Brod in 1995 with 1,100 per day, but the average daily crowd has grown to more than 26,000 since it moved to the disused Soviet-era airport at Hradec Kralove in 2007.
This year’s Rock For People bill July 2-5 included Queens Of The Stone Age, Thirty Seconds To Mars, Billy Talent, Gogol Bordello, The Gaslight Anthem, and Papa Roach.