Tinderbox In The Red

Although the debut event wasn’t expected to make money, German promoter FKP Scorpio and local partner Brian Nielsen appeared to be hoping for 25,000 per day rather than their initial target of 30,000.

Danish daily paper Ekstra Bladet reported the Odense festival had come in for “several days of criticism” for offering tickets with a 25 percent discount, sparking complaints from some who paid full price. Ekstra Bladet also accused Tinderbox of being “hush-hush” about its sales figures, but on May 29 it confirmed that it had shifted 19,000 tickets.

Organisers said it only intended selling a further 6,000 in order to “ensure that people receive the best possible festival experience.” “As previously said, the focus is on more space, quality and good atmosphere at Tinderbox,” Nielsen told Ekstra Bladet. “We have felt that in some there has been a reticence about a new festival in Odense, but I think that is both natural and expected, when the festival has not yet taken place. Therefore it is extra nice to see a recent speeding up of sales,” he explained.

He said that economically this year’s festival would end up in the red, but he saw the first year as an investment in the festival’s future. The site at Odense, Denmark’s third-largest city, is 74 hectares and capable of holding 50,000. The longer-term plan for Scorpio is to twin Tinderbox with Bravalla, its 3-year-old Swedish festival that’s already doing more than 50,000 per day.

The Danish fest was besieged by criticism from the outset, not least because the local council put 23.4 million Danish krone (then $4.09 million) into it. Leading daily Politiken revealed that 7 million krone ($1.2 million) was being handed over in the first year and that the funding deal stretched over five years.

Poul Martin Bonde from Smukfest, another of Denmark’s biggest fests with a 2014 crowd of 50,000, said his main concern was that the Odense authority was putting in so much money, which “obviously will give Tinderbox a big economic advantage compared to the other Danish festivals.”

The Tinderbox lineup June 26-28 has Robbie Williams, The Prodigy, Calvin Harris, Faith No More, and James Blake.