‘A Hard Decision To Make’: FKP Scorpio Pulls The Plug On Bravalla Festival In Sweden Over Sexual Offenses

FKP Scorpio released a statement saying it decided to discontinue its Swedish festival Bravalla, mainly over sexual offenses at the 2016 and 2017 editions.

FKP Scorpio – Bravalla Festival
Scene from the 2016 edition

FKP had already decided not to put on the event in 2018. “My colleagues at FKP Scorpio Sweden struggle and work very hard to create something amazing and after last year’s festival both they and I were crushed. If we lose the passion and the joy, we cannot create what we want. When I heard that more crimes were reported this year, I instinctively felt that this was a decision I needed to take. We must take a stand,” FKP Scorpio CEO Folkert Koopmans said at the time.

Now, Koopmans decided to pull the plug on Bravalla for good. A heartfelt statement on his company’s website reads:

“We are sorry to announce that we have decided not to continue with our Swedish festival Bråvalla. It has been a hard decision to make, but after many months of discussion we have come to a point where we do not see that the visions we have for Bråvalla will come true and have therefore decided to put our energy and passion into other projects instead.

“Bråvalla has been a very popular festival that we are very proud of, with more than 250,000 visitors over the last five years. But it has met some controversy, particularly in connection to the sexual offenses that have been reported all over Sweden the last few years. Festivals are, how hard we all try, not protected from the problems that we see in the rest of the society, all over the world.

“We have since day one tried to use Bråvalla as a positive force in the fight against this societal problem. As a statement, wanting to raise awareness to the issue, we decided take a break from the festival in 2018. During this break we have come to talk about what we want the festival to be and what kind of experience we would like to give the audience. As a result, we have concluded that we do not see a long-term, sustainable future for Bråvalla and will therefore not develop the festival further at this moment in time, but rather put our energy into creating new and exciting experiences for the wonderful Swedish audiences.

“It has been a great few years, and we are looking forward to all the other projects that we already have coming up over the next few months and years in Sweden.”

– Bravalla
The list of artists that played the festival since its inception in 2013 is impressive