Indian Summer Overcomes Late Start

German festival promoter Folkert Koopmans was pleased to see Indian Summer Festival do a daily crowd of 25,000, and believes the Dutch event would have done more if he’d managed to get it on track any earlier.

Photo: Jelmer de Haas

Holland’s Indian Summer Festival drew daily crowds of 25,000 June 14-15 with acts including Underworld, Tom Odell and Lily Allen.

He says he was late booking the acts for the event at Noord-Scharwoude because he was completing the buyout of festival partner Marco Kuiper.

Koopmans’ FKP Scorpio bought its original stake in 2012, around the same time he started Best Kept Secret, its other Dutch festival that takes place at Beekse Bergen June 20-22. Utrecht-based promoter Friendly Fire, FKP’s partner in Best Kept Secret, will now take over the local organization of Indian Summer.

Although Indian Summer was 5,000 people down from 2013, Koopmans believes starting the booking earlier would have enabled him to secure a bill that had more depth.

Another upside for the Hamburg-based promoter was the successful trialing of a cashless payment system, this time provided by Munich-based YouChip. Koopmans had trouble with the RFID cashless payments system in 2012 at his Hurricane Festival in Germany, with the promoter claiming the wristbands were not scanning correctly during the event and Australian firm EITS Global claiming it had pulled out because of contractual disputes.

YouChip will now supply and operate its radio frequency identification and cashless systems at Best Kept Secret.

The acts enjoying Indian Summer June 14-15 included Underworld, Tom Odell, Lily Allen, Milow, and Crystal Fighters.