Features
Northside Sells Out
A few Danish festival promoters may be wondering why they were so bothered about the so-called invasion of German promoter FKP Scorpio, as so far it appears to have had little effect on the market.
An early contender for ILMC's Arthur Award for Liggers' Favourite Festival is FKP Scorpio's new Sideways Festival in Finland June 12-13. which attracted several local promoters.
For the second year in succession, the Hamburg-based promoter’s 30,000-capacity sellout of its Northside Festival coincided with the news that Roskilde – Denmark’s biggest and best-known festival – had sold out its 80,000 capacity in advance. The Roskilde sellout has come despite Scorpio starting Tinderbox, a second Danish festival that’s caused even more local controversy due to the $4.09 million of public money that’s been poured into it.
Brian Nielsen, Scorpio’s local partner on both fests, has admitted that ticket sales for Tinderbox are a little shy of what was originally anticipated. The newest of Scorpio’s new Scandinavian fests is Sideways, which Juha Kyyrö – the company’s recently appointed managing director for the Nordic region – started in the old meat packing district in downtown Helsinki June 12-13.
The Teurastamo area of the Finnish capital has moved upmarket and now houses restaurants, bars, local breweries, organic food companies, art exhibitions, and design companies. Kyyrö’s efforts at creating an event with exciting music, arts and cuisine clearly paid off as the 6,000-capacity crowd included what looked like a Who’s Who of Finnish promoters. The Northside lineup playing Århus June 12-14 included Alt-J, Antony and the Johnsons, Ben Howard, CarlBarât and The Jackals, Death Cab for Cutie, George Ezra, MØ, Incubus, and Interpol.