Features
Fields Claims Swedish Fest Record
Live Nation’s new Stockholm Fields says it has broken Sweden’s festival attendance by pulling 51,863 fans to the city’s Ladugårdsgärdet May 30.
Photo: Courtesy Live Nation
Metallica plays the new Swedish fest May 30.
That just shades the 51,590 who showed for one of the three days at last year’s Bravalla Festival at Norrköping, where the FKP Scorpio-promoted event was also making its debut.
Bravalla is likely ruing the fact it was hit by a public transport strike that caused twice as many people as expected to drive to the city on the Baltic coast, leading to two-hour traffic jams on the roads around the festival. Reportedly some fans didn’t even make it to Norrköping, where Bravalla will try to re-take the record June 26-28 with a bill that has Iron Maiden, Kings Of Leon, and Kanye West.
“I think there are mainly two reasons,” said LN Sweden press officer Kristofer Åkesson, explaining why Stockholm Fields did so well. “First of all, Metallica is one of the world biggest bands and they are enormously popular in Sweden, so having them on top of the bill is of course one reason.
“And secondly it has to do with the festival’s location. Finally we were able to do a big event in the very heart of Stockholm.
“We have worked many years to be able to do a festival on Gärdet, a huge park in the city centre. It’s a great site close to everything that the capital has to offer in terms of restaurants, nightlife, transportation, and hotels.”