Bravalla Underpins FKP’s Nordic Bloc

The crowd was nearly 10 percent down on last year, but 50,703 is still plenty enough to make Bravalla Sweden’s biggest festival and the cornerstone of German promoter FKP Scorpio’s big Nordic weekend.

The acts June 25-27 included Muse, Robbie Williams, Faith No More, and The Gaslight Anthem, which all played at least one of the other FKP fests happening in Scandinavia over the same weekend. This year Bravalla was joined by Tinderbox in Denmark and Provinssirock in Finland, both the product of Scorpio’s recent expansion into the Nordic territories.

Despite Danish newspaper reports that Tinderbox, which is in Odense, would struggle to get past 20,000 per day in its debut year, the final figure was more than 27,000. The acts playing Tinderbox June 26-28 included Robbie Williams, The Prodigy, Ellie Goulding, Faith No More, Hozier, The Cardigans, and The Gaslight Anthem. There were 26,000-plus at Finland’s Provinssirock, the first time Scorpio had run the event, adding up to more than 100,000 Scandinavian fans across one weekend.

Although the Finnish crowd was the lowest, it’s still likely larger than any of the country’s other festivals can produce for three days. It was also the festival’s second-biggest crowd, beaten only by the 27,000-per-day average of 2011. The lineup June 24-27 included Muse, Calvin Harris, Apocalyptica, First Aid Kit, Passenger, and The Gaslight Anthem.