Positivus About Future Growth

The Baltic region has no history for staging festivals and Positivus, which last year did 30,000 per day for a bill that included Elbow, Kraftwerk, Bastille, and Ellie Goulding, is double the size of its nearest rivals.

It’s also the only Baltic festival with any claims to international status. The 9-year-old festival at Salacgriva, where the River Salaca flows into the Baltic Sea at the Gulf Of Riga, had 3,000 per day in its first year but within five years it was doing a minimum of 20,000 per day. It’s been shortlisted for various European Festival Awards without ever winning one, and festival chief Girts Majors is wary using the extra entertainment money to buy his festival on to the podium.

“We still operate with lower budgets because the market can’t afford higher ticket prices, but of course we’re growing from year to year and I believe someday we can compete with other European festivals,” he told Pollstar.

The lineup for this year’s Positivus (July 17-19) includes Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters, Basement Jaxx, Jungle, St. Vincent, Tom O’Dell, Fenech-Soler, and Soak.