Scorpio Makes A Quick Getaway

German promoter FKP Scorpio has made another raid on the Swedish festival market by taking a majority stake in the Getaway Festival at Gävle.

In January, Scorpio announced it bought the title to the country’s bankrupt, 30,000-capacity Hultsfred Festival. It also has plans to start a new festival with a capacity of about 40,000 on an old military airbase near Norrköping.

For the last two years Tomas Jernberg has run the 10,000-capacity rock-oriented Getaway Festival at the Baltic seaport and university city.

Folkert Koopmans’ Hamburg-based company – arguably Europe’s fastest-growing festival promoter – will now partner him in a bid to grow it to the level that it can stand alongside Sweden Rock and Metaltown.

The Getaway site has space for 30,000 and as Gävle is five or six hours north of Sweden Rock and Metaltown, Koopmans believes the market can accommodate all three.

“I am very happy that next to the Hultsfred Festival we have now taken a further step into the Swedish festival market,” Koopmans explained.

His company already has more than a half-dozen festivals in Germany including major events such as Southside, Hurricane and Highfield, plus relatively new outdoors in Switzerland and Denmark.

Jernberg says he has “high hopes” for the new cooperation because he and Scorpio “share the same visions” and his German partner has more than 25 years of experience of the live music business and a highly motivated team.

Next year’s Getaway, which has previously had Bullet For My Valentine and Alice Cooper among its headliners, is scheduled for July 5-7.