Oya Enjoys Tøyenparken

Although the capital city of Oslo is a regular stop-off on European tours, Norway’s top four festivals combined would struggle to produce a crowd of 45,000 per day. Oya, which has now sold out for 13 years in a row, has previously taken place at Middelalderparken (or “medieval park”), an ancient burial ground where site restrictions include not sinking posts into the ground for fear of disturbing the skeletons.

“People loved our new site much more than we dared to dream of,” says Oya chief Claes Oslen, who’d been eyeing a move to Tøyenparken for a number of years.

“The main issue has been to manage to close a major street with a bus route for a week,” he explained. “With the street closed the site becomes truly unique. Two adjoining parks become one huge area, with the internationally well-known Munch museum and the beautiful botanical gardens on one side, and Oslo’s best outdoor amphitheater park, which also includes an outdoor swimming pool, a soccer field and picturesque walking paths, on the other side.”

Even before getting agreement for the street closure, Oya has for three years used one of the parks for Miniøya, the special kids’ festival it runs each year.

“The new site is 50 percent bigger than the old one, but we decided to only sell 500 more tickets per day. With more volunteers it was about 1,200 more people per day in the park, which gave the audience more space and comfort,” Olsen told Pollstar.

The acts helping Oya seem like a walk in the parks Aug. 5-9 included Queens Of The Stone Age, Outkast, Royksopp & Robyn, The National, Janelle Monae, and Neutral Milk Hotel.