Euro Festival Update: Flagships In Holland & Belgium Cancel, Download Germany Launches

Two of the Netherlands’ most famous festivals, Down The Rabbit Hole and Lowlands, had to cancel their 2021 editions over a prolonging of government restrictions.

The Dutch government had initially announced that it planned to remove all coronavirus restrictions imposed on events through July, however, the “many uncertainties surrounding the delta variant” of coronavirus have led the decision makers to postpone the target date to Sept. 1 for the time being, Mojo Concerts, promoter of both events, wrote in a statement.

Until then, multi-day events that include a camping offer remain banned, which has effectively pulled the plug on both Lowlands, scheduled Aug. 20-22, and Down The Rabbit Hole, Aug. 27-29. Promoter Mojo Concerts had moved the latter from its usual early-July date and location to the site of Lowlands in Biddinghuizen at the end of August.

According to a promoter statement, the cancellation of both events for a second year running was “a very bitter pill” to swallow, because “the developments surrounding corona have clearly gone in the right direction in recent months. Based on that, we started the preparations (…) full of enthusiasm and all artists, suppliers and especially you were ready for a fantastic weekend.”

The Dutch government has announced that it would issue a guarantee fund to support the live events sector and enable promoters to still pay artists, suppliers, caterers, and the many people involved in the staging of events. Lowlands director Eric van Eerdenburg explained that “the guarantee fund applies to all acts that are being canceled by us because of governmental covid measures as of today [July 26]. This includes deposits etc. Acts that canceled themselves before this governmental decision are not covered.”

Mojo already announced 2022 dates for both events. The next edition of Lowlands is now scheduled for Aug. 19-21, while Down The Rabbit Hole will go down July 1-3 at its usual site, Groene Heuvels in Beuningen.

Belgium’s 66,000-capacity Pukkelpop, scheduled for Aug. 19-22, was forced to cancel over its testing capacity, which wouldn’t have sufficed to satisfy the government’s entry restrictions.

Originally a negative PCR test carried out within 72 hours of arrival was enough, but last week the time frame got reduced to 48 hours. At the same time, authorities decided that a negative antigen test was no longer sufficient for fans to be admitted to the festival, but went back on that decision a few days later, allowing antigen testing again but with a reduced validity of 24 instead of the original 48 hours.

The promoters of Pukkelpop had planned for a capacity of up to 7,000 tests per day at the Pukkelpop site in Hasselt, but the limited validity of both tests meant that they would have had to triple this capacity. 

“To put things into perspective: this is 21 times the capacity of the Park Spoor Noord testing [center] in Antwerp at the height of its activities. The 24/48 hour limit effectively means tripling the number of tests but there is no way we could guarantee the government we can organize this under safe circumstances. This is simple math and a healthy dose of common sense,” according to a promoter statement.

Coupled with the fact that the vaccination rate within Pukkelpop’s target demographic is low, it would have meant that almost 8 out of 10 of the festival’s young audience would have to submit to testing. “For a multi-day mass event with such a young audience, many of which haven’t had the opportunity to get vaccinated, daily testing of so many youngsters is simply not feasible,” promoters write.

And they conclude, “Pukkelpop has a huge responsibility to its audience and our youths in particular. From an organizational standpoint we were prepared to go to great lengths to ensure everyone’s safety. Throughout this process we have relied on the recommendations and advice of an extensive team of experts. These past few days we have examined every possible scenario together in detail but the conclusion was always the same: under these new rules we cannot possibly guarantee a safe and carefree Pukkelpop environment.

Following consultations with the Pukkelpop team the federal government has today decided not to allow the festival to proceed in its current form. As a result, Pukkelpop is postponed to 2022.”

There are positive news as well coming from the European continent: Download Festival has announced its launch in Germany for 2022. The date has been set, June 24, suggesting a one-day event.

It will be located on Hockenheimring, not to be confused with Nürburgring, where Live Nation GSA CEO Marek Lieberberg launched what became arguably Germany’s most famous festival, Rock am Ring, in 1985.  There’s no more information available. The news was first reported by German trade magazine Musikwoche, Live Nation’s German office confirmed the story with Pollstar.

Rock am Ring still takes place at Nürburgring, after moving to a different location for two editions in 2015 and 2016. It usually takes place in early July, now promoted by eventimpresents. The launch of Download will bring another rock focused event to the famous race track.

Live Nation’s Download Festival brand first launched in Donington, UK, and has since expanded to Paris, France; Madrid, Spain; Melbourne, Australia; and Chiba, Japan. None of these took place over the past two years for obvious reasons, however, the UK hosted a pilot event of Download Festival as part of the country’s Events Research Programme.