Go-Ahead For Double Smukfest

Smukfest, properly known as Skanderborg Festival, wanted to stage events with the same lineups on the first two weekends of August in order to stave off competition from German promoter FKP Scorpio’s new Tinderbox Festival, which is being bolstered by $4.5 million worth of long-term funding from the local council in Odense.

The result of the local council vote was always on the cards after Skanderborg Mayor Jørgen Gaarde publicly admitted that the Odense authority’s funding of Tinderbox has been a game-changer for the Danish festival market.

He told major daily paper Politiken that it’s now being fought on “exceptionally competitive terms.”

Smukfest chairman Claus Visbye told television network TV2 that he was happy with the result of the council vote, but said the plan now hinges on being able to book the acts twice for successive weekends. He also said he’d hoped to start arranging the new double Smukfests in 2015.

Although effectively staging the 28,000-capacity festival twice on successive weekends will likely double the entertainment budget, Visbye reckons that spreading the infrastructure costs over a longer period will still mean that Smukfest does better financially.

The festival is also amending its boycott of Danish booking agencies Skandinavian and Beatbox, which was initiated when the owners of those companies teamed with FKP Scorpio. Mads Sørensen had sold his interest in Beatbox before teaming with the German promoter, while Brian Nielsen has since let Skandinavian go to a workers buyout led by Morten Elley.

Smukfest press chief Poul Martin Bonde tells Pollstar his festival’s boycott of Skandinavian and Beatbox has now been lifted, but it still won’t be doing business with Nielsen or Sørensen. Roskilde, Jelling and Nibe, the three other Danish fests that announced a boycott of Skandinavian and Beatbox, are expected to follow suit.