Koivisto Disappointed With Provinssirock

Provinssirock chief Juha Koivisto believes an overcrowded Finnish market led to his festival recording its worst crowd figures in several years.

Apart from falling in the same month as an outdoor show from Bon Jovi, Provinssirock was also up against Live Nation’s new Rock The Beach (June 26-29), which has Green Day, Rammstein, Queens Of The Stone Age, Paramore, and The Gaslight Anthem.

Last year, bad weather leading up to the event reduced Provinssirock’s three-day crowd to 56,000, but this year it took another knock and the respective daily crowds were 14,000, 16,000 and 12,000 – 14,000 down on last year’s figure.
In 2011, the 26,000-capacity event at Seinajoki had broken its attendance record by pulling 25,000 per day.

“There are hundreds of small festivals all over Finland in midsummer, but competing with the big headliners on the beach at Helsinki has proved too much,” Koivisto explained.

He’s now turning his attention to Jurassic Rock, a three-day festival he’s staging at Mikkeli in southern Finland Aug. 9-11. The lineup includes System Of A Down, Killswitch Engage, De La Soul, and Disco Ensemble.

The Provinssirock bill June 14-16 had Blur, Bad Religion, White Lies, Steve Aoki, Kvelertak, Bastille, Children Of Bodom, Turbonegro and In Flames.