Lister

By Camille Lange

They are hard to find. At Roskilde Festival 2009 there are less Swedes, than ever before. And there’s one good reason for that: financial crisis.

"We really love the Swedes, so of course it means a lot that less of them come here. Both economically and socially. We have tried to put on very cheap busses, and this has fortunately made lots of them come here, but still less than normally," explains an annoyed spokesman for the Festival, Esben Danielsen.

So while the Swedes have invaded the music programme, there is only little blue-yellow representation on the camping ground.

”Jävla” expensive festival

However, in a burnt off corner of J45 Martin and Andreas from Landskrona have slammed their tent poles into the barren soil and made a good old-fashioned Swede camp. But it wasn’t exactly easy this year.

"Our friends from Scania are going on a travel later this year, so they had to axe Roskilde Festival now that exspenses are rising. A ticket costs SEK 2,500, and then there’s transportation, booze, fags and food on top of that. It’s ’jävla’ expensive!" finds Andreas, who this year used an alternative method to find countrymen-camp members.

"We used a forum at an alternative Swedish music site called helgon.se. There we found some other Swedes who could afford to go, so we’ll be 19 on Thursday when the last ones arrive," says Martin.

Food for the whole week

One thing is the ticket price. On top of that there are other economical challenges.

"The food is expensive as hell in Danish kroner," blonde Malin complains. She has brought food for the whole week from Sweden.

"But that won’t even last," she realizes after a glance into the food tent.

In spite of financial crisis and language barriers the Swedes behind the swimming lake are in good spirits, and are happy about the sweet Danes, the fantastic weather and Boten Anna (Swedish pop techno song, ed.) on the sound system.

Facts

The number of douhgty Swedes at Roskilde Festival have nosedived in latest years. In 2002 Sweden topped with a total of 28 percent of all the guests at Roskilde Festival, in 2003 it was 23 persent, but this year have been squeezed down to eight percent.