Roberta Misses Rock In Rios

Rock In Rio executive VP Roberta Medina missed both of her father Roberto’s European Rio festivals because she was recovering from a back injury she suffered after falling off a horse.

She originally told Pollstar that she broke a vertebra “during a press conference in Lisbon,” although further questioning revealed the May 19 media jaunt involved some horse riding to show the press the 19,000 trees the festival planted on army-owned land at Tapada Militar de Mafra to compensate the for CO2 emissions from the 2006 festival.

“The press conference presented all the social and environmental projects we support and explained how more than euro 3 million has been invested,” she explained. “When I get better I’ll go back there to find out why that horse started running so fast before I could do anything. We galloped around two miles before I fell off.”

Roberta last year collected the Energy Globe Award the organisation earned for its Portuguese “Rock in Rio Solar School.” The award, which was presented at the Czech national gallery in Prague, was for the best youth project dedicated to conserving energy.
This year’s Rock In Lisbon, which was May 21-22 and May 27-30, attracted 329,000 over five days. The biggest-pulling day was headlined by Miley Cyrus with 88,000, followed the days headlined by Muse (83,000), Shakira (81,000), Elton John (41,000) and Rammstein (36,000).

After the first leg of Rock In Rio In Madrid June 4-6, the festival reported Shakira again doing well by drawing a crowd of 85,000. It seems Miley Cyrus isn’t as popular in Madrid, but her night attracted 36,000. The opening night featured Bon Jovi, which pulled 51,000. The headliners for the second leg of the Madrid festival scheduled for June 11 and June 14 are Rage Against The Machine and Metallica.