A Shared Learning

Dozens of Europe’s major festival chiefs will put their heads together at this year’s Eurosonic to see what they can do to reduce the risk of disasters like the one that hit this year’s Pukkelpop in Belgium.

This meeting of minds bears an obvious resemblance to the one at ILMC after nine lives were lost at Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2000, although the general consensus is that safety standards have much improved since then.

The debate will be hosted by The Yourope Event Safety Group, the successor to the ILMC Safety Focus Group that grew out of the London conference of March 2001.

Yourope, or the European Festival Association, now has about six dozen member festivals from 26 countries stretching from the UK to Russia.

It’s a more suitable and sustainable platform than the original ILMC group, which ultimately failed because it couldn’t fund itself or persuade the European Union to cough up the money.

A group consisting of more than 70 major European festivals has proved a better foundation and more suitable in the sense that the festivals have the greatest obligation to ensure safety at their events.

The UK’s Bucks New University – renowned worldwide for its programmes for the security and crowd safety management industries and a stalwart of the original ILMC panel – and Eurosonic Noorderslag are both associate members of Yourope.

Eurosonic Noorderslag says its main aim involves exchange – the exchange of artists, the exchange of contacts and the exchange of ideas.

Although improving general standards will be on the agenda, the main focus at Eurosonic will likely be what festivals can do to minimise the effect of incidents beyond their control.

The storm that cost five lives at Pukkelpop was legally declared “force majeure,” a chance occurrence or unavoidable accident. This could lead to festival chiefs considering the best means of dealing with their sites being hit by a stray meteorite or a burned-out piece of space junk.

It also raises the question of a festival’s insurance coverage, particularly as Pukkelpop would have been in a much better position to claim if organisers had been negligent in any way.

Belgium’s second-largest festival is now offering to compensate ticket-holders for this year’s canceled event with free food and beverage tokens for the next three Pukkelpops.

The other topical issue up for discussion will be the question of whether it’s possible to hold large-scale festivals without a barrier system, a debate prompted by Poland’s Woodstock Festival insisting it’s safer not to have one.

Eurosonic has also started to announce acts for next year’s European Talent Exchange, one of the key factors in the annual gathering receiving $3 million worth of support from the European Union.

Amsterdam Dance Event, Eurosonic’s electronic music sister, attracted 3,000 conference-goers and 140,000 festival visitors from 62 different countries Oct. 19-22.

Prominent artists including David Guetta, Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, and Boy George spoke about their careers and visions of the music industry.

Next year’s Eurosonic Noorderslag, which opens with the European Festival Awards, is in Groningen, The Netherlands, Jan. 11-14.