LN Annoyed By Tabloid

At the beginning of February it irked German festival promoter Folkert Koopmans by making quite a big story out of his Danish festival Tinderbox not selling well, despite Robbie Williams being among its headliners.

“I am getting bored of this,” Koopmans told Pollstar, indicating that he’d faced similar stories when he expanded his operation into Switzerland and Sweden Ekstra Bladet’s report of Live Nation’s AC/DC show on the Roskilde Festival site July 15 reads like what in Denmark amounts to a public disaster – or 55,000 Danes all wanting a drink at the same time.

“Some spirits were high,” Ekstra Bladet reported, complaining that “it was a hell to get food and beer without waiting for ages in long queues.”

It went on to say LN could also expect “a regular shit-storm” from the volunteer bar staff who’d been manning the pumps without even getting their own catering break.

“There were no breaks. We were promised an after-party as well as food,” said Tobias Mikkelsen, a volunteer barman at the event and Ekstra Bladet’s main source on the story.

“We pay the local football club who look after the bar staff on local basis,” explained LN European chief John Reid. “550 metres of bars, 1,000 people serving beers, but still the bars in the middle were busy as you would expect when 5,5000 danes go out to have a few beers at once. “I gather most of the bars weren’t too pressed and coped well though.”