Lowlands Sells Out In Two Hours

Tickets for Lowlands sold out in a little more than two hours Nov. 26, with festival organiser Eric van Eerdenburg saying fans wanted to get in early as well as avoid paying more when the government hikes the VAT rate.

Van Eerdenburg has been lobbying against the rate of VAT on concert tickets being raised from 6 percent to 19 percent at the beginning of 2011, including “bombarding politicians with emails.” But when he realised it was a losing battle he opted to bring forward the onsale in order to charge the lower rate.

Although acknowledging purchasers saved a little over $26 on the $218 ticket, van Eerdenburg – who is director of the Mojo-owned event – believes the server-jamming response was largely thanks to fans who tried and failed to buy a ticket for the 2010 festival.

This year’s Lowlands went on sale in February and took about two months to sell its 55,000 tickets, but the demand continued long after all the tickets were gone.

Van Eerdenburg says part of the reason for going on sale early was too capitalise on those fans who were still disappointed on missing out on this year.

“44,000 hits in three seconds,” he told Pollstar after his 2011 presale campaign had been hugely booted by Dutch media reports of the ticket price hike and his loud opposition to it.

The festival is Aug. 19-21, almost nine months away, and none of the acts have been announced.

Lowlands 2010 had Massive Attack, Placebo, Snow Patrol, Pendulum, Gentleman & The Revolution, The Gaslight Anthem, Queens of the Stone Age, Imelda May, Mumford & Sons and The Kooks.