Nyhed

Roskilde Festival 2011 offered a wealth of diverse musical experiences. A total of 163 hand-picked acts made up this year's poster. Quantity is one thing but Roskilde Festival has a full focus on quality. One of the qualities is with precision to capture tomorrow's superstars and introduce them to a large and curious audience. At this year's festival there were compelling concerts, for instance by electronic prodigy Nicolas Jaar, the melo-metal satan-worshipers in Swedish Ghost and the everywhere-at-once hip hoppers in OFWGKTA. The latter was led by Tyler, The Creator from a wheelchair. A broken foot does not stop the world's probably most talked-about hip hop act right now.

Roskilde Festival gives priority to provide unique music experiences: the musical union of the two Fela Kuti sons Femi and Seun on the same stage has never been seen before. It was also at Roskilde Festival that the audience could see the fusion of the African congotronics genre and a big setup of Western indie rock bands. The bass was deep as Magnetic Man with guests returned to Roskilde, whose stage setting and audience made the trio want to continue to play live. Portishead came back to Roskilde Festival and stated that their relevance on today’s music scene remains extremely great, with a focus on aesthetics rather than dynamics.

The artists are also overwhelmed by the Roskilde crowd. After his concert, Kurt Vile called the Roskilde audience the best ever. Soul man Charles Bradley shed a tear and hugged the front rows of the audience – he was that moved by the reception of the Roskilde people. M.I.A. sensed she was doing something big on the orange altar. She exclaimed: "This one is really gonna be hard to top." Deadmau5 was overwhelmed by the large turnout for his thumping dance party on Orange Stage. "I pretty much have no words to describe this one, if you were there, you know. ♥ so much Denmark!" was the message from the mouse on his own Facebook page.

2011 was also the year that welcomed the new Gloria stage. With a new intimate setting, Roskilde Festival had created a platform for the more delicate expressions. The scene has been visited by such diverse expressions as Danish band Frisk Frugt with clay sculptors, Svarte Greiner’s disturbing one-man expression and Wang Li’s equilibristic Jew’s harp playing.

Weather and water
The weather always plays a crucial part for the festival's organisers and guests, and it showed its sunny side in the first four days. When the audience on Thursday 30 June at 17 entered the festival site it had started raining. On Saturday evening the festival – like the rest of the country – was stricken by a cloudburst. In total about 14 mm of rain fell. The audience took it well, however – and the festival's rain contingency spread out wood chips, gravel and took care of mud pumping. In total 100-200 m3 of wood chips were spread on site.

Waste, refund and a cableway
Soon the audience head back home. Usually, they leave behind a lot of waste, but this year there will be at least 42 tonnes less. The guests had helped collect that much waste in the campaign Your Clean Hour in the first four days of festival.

A total of 1,350 volunteers from DanChurchAid, Danish Refugee Council and Red Cross Youth collected refund for humanitarian purposes. Already on Friday the collection rounded DKK 400,000 (approx. 54,000 euro).

The guests also collected refund. The refund was used as payment for a ride on the 502 metres long and 31 metres tall aerial cableway from the campsite, over the gravel pit to the festival site. The cableway offered the audience a view of the gravel pit from a new angle.

Despite having a sunny Sunday, a fatal accident cast a dark shadow over the year 2011. A young woman died after having fallen from the tower at the festival’s aerial cableway.

Despite having a sunny Sunday, a fatal accident cast a dark shadow over the end of this year's festival. A woman stepped onto a platform outside the fence of the container tower by the aerial cableway and fell from the tower. The cableway was stopped due to weather conditions at the current time. Police investigations show that this is an unfortunate incident.

The economy and the purpose
A sold-out festival also means a profit. In 2011 we expect it to be at least 1.4 million euro. All profits go to charitable causes. The profits must be donated before next year's festival.

Thank you for this year. See you in 2012.