Heineken Open’er Crowned Top Fest

Poland’s Heineken Open’er was voted Europe’s best major festival for the second year in succession.

Festival chief Mikolaj Ziolkowski accepted the gong at the European Festival Awards at The Stadschouwburg, Groningen, Jan. 12, part of the annual Eurosonic-Noorderslag showcase and conference.

Later he told Pollstar he understands that other older major European festivals also have massive support, so he particularly appreciates that the Heineken crowd actually gets online and votes for the event.

The second win is made even more remarkable by the fact the festival that started in Warsaw with a 10,000 crowd in 2002, before switching to the old Babie Doly Soviet airbase near Gydnia, doesn’t celebrate its 10th anniversary until July.

The other well-known European festivals it beat included previous winners Serbia’s Exit Festival and Ireland’s Oxegen Festival, as well as Belgium’s Rock Werchter, Germany’s Hurricane and Denmark’s Roskilde.

The Irish were again in the limelight when Electric Picnic, now owned and run by the UK’s Festival Republic, won best medium-sized festival. The country’s Temple House Festival won best new festival.

However, the Poles weren’t finished. The country’s 5 Tauron Nowa Muzyka Festival took the best small festival award.

Eurosonic-Noorderslag received a massive cheer when it was announced among the nominees for best indoor festival, but the prize went to the 2-year-old Rolling Stone Weekender in Germany, which is produced by Folkert Koopmans’ FKP Scorpio.

Germany’s Melt Festival, which is staged at an old open-face coal mine at Graefenhainichen, won artists’ favourite festival.

The new Sonisphere festivals produced by Kilimanjaro Live in cahoots with John Jackson’s K2 Agency was nominated in several categories without winning any of them, but Kilimanjaro chief Stuart Galbraith got more than compensation when he was named promoter of the year.

The Green ’N’ Clean Award went to Portugal’s Boom Festival.

When it came to the artists’ awards, Muse was voted best headliner and also took anthem of the year for “Uprising.”

Florence & The Machine was voted best newcomer.