Nice to know
- Photo: Carsten Snejbjerg, Rockphoto.
- Roskilde Festival 2012 takes place 5 - 8 July, warm-up 30 June - 4 July.
- Camping areas open on Saturday 30 June at 18:00.
- In 2012, Roskilde Festival is held for the 42nd time.
- 77,500 all-week tickets and 20,000 one-day tickets are for sale in 2012.
- A total of approx. 200 bands are expected to play on Roskilde Festival’s eight stages.
- This year Roskilde Festival is introducing the new stage Apollo, which focuses on electronic music.
- Roskilde Festival is organised by The Roskilde Festival Charity Society - a society whose purpose is to collect money fpr humanitarian and cultural work.
- All profits earned from Roskilde Festival are donated to charity. More than DKK 180 million (app. € 24 mill.) have been donated throughout the years.
- Roskilde Festival is arranged on the basis of committed volunteers. More than 30,000 volunteers create the festival's unique service, quality and atmosphere.
Stage | Capacity/Audience | Trivia |
Orange Stage | 60,000 | Consists of app. 1,100 m² tent canvas and 1,378 m² stage floors inclusive bay ect. The tent weighs 3.5 tons. The two big screens on either side of the stage are 54 m² each. In addition, there are 100 m² screens on stage. There is 350,000 watts of light on the stage and 175,000 watts of light among the audience. Additionally, there are 98 so-called moving heads on stage and approx. 100 among the audience. The sound system has a total capacity of approx. 300,000 watts including delay. |
Arena | 17,000 | Arena is the largest concert tent in Europe. It consists of 4,932 m² tent at standing height and 654 m² stage floors. The complete tent area is 6,450 m². There is approx. 200,000 watts of light and 92 moving heads on stage. The sound system has a total capacity of approx. 100,000 watts including delay. |
Odeon | 5,000 | Consists of 1,922 m² tent and 409 m² stage floors. All light on stage is LED and uses only approx. 35.000 watt. There are about 80 moving heads on stage. The sound system has a total capacity of approx. 80.000 watts including delay. |
Cosmopol | 6,000 | The complete tent area is 3,468 m² with approx. 500 m² tent stage floors including bay ect. On stage and in the tent room we have app. 120 screens and approx. 100 moving light spots. Light and visuals are controlled together and lots of bands bring visuals for the screens themselves. The sound system has a total capacity of approx. 100,000 watts including delay. |
Pavilion / Pavilion Junior | 2,000 | Consists of 1,134 m² tent and 275 m² stage floors. The stage light is mainly LED and uses approx. 25,000 watts. There are app. 45 moving head spots on stage. The sound system has a total capacity of approx. 50,000 watts including delay. |
Gloria | 1,000 | Consists of 900 m² tent, 200 m² stage floors and approx. 300 m² grandstands for the audience. The scene light is mainly LED and uses max. 15,000 watt with approx. 12 moving head sports. Video-visuals powered by 23 projectors are suspended from the ceiling and covers the entire roof of the tent. The sound system has a total capacity of approx. 18,000 watts including delay. |
Apollo | Apollo is a mobile open-air stage. The stage is set up in a new place in the camping area each day during the warm-up days. During the festival days Apollo is set up in a permanently place. The stage is active from afternoon to midnight in the warm-up days and from early to late night during the festival days. |
- Participants in total: Up to 77,500 festival guests, about 3,000 press representatives, 3,000 artists, 30,000 volunteers, 20,000 one-day guests plus an unknown number of guests over 60 and children under 10 years.
- 54 % are women and 46 % are men.
- Approx. 22 % were first-time visitors at Roskilde Festival in 2011.
- The average age is 23 years.
- The typical festival guest is a student living in a Scandinavian city.
- Approx. 50 % of the guests arrive by train.
- In 2011, 42,500 people arrived at Roskilde Festival during the first 24 hours.
- A festival guest spends approx. € 630 during the festival.
- Audience research from 2011 shows that the vast majority of the festival guests was at Roskilde Festival for the sake of the music, the atmosphere and the community.
- Combined, the wristbands from Roskilde Festival 2011 are 25 kilometers long.
- Denmark: 80 %
- Norway: 8 %
- Sweden: 4 %
- Other countries: 8 %
(Based on numbers from 2011).
Year | Number of guests | Tickets sold | Ticket price |
1971 | x | 10,000 | 30 DKK |
1972 | x | 15,000 | 40 DKK |
1973 | x | 18,000 | 40 DKK |
1974 | x | 21,500 | 50 DKK |
1975 | x | 26,000 | 55 DKK |
1976 | x | 32,500 | 60 DKK |
1977 | x | 31,000 | 80 DKK |
1978 | x | 36,500 | 100 DKK |
1979 | x | 40,000 | 110 DKK |
1980 | x | 50,100 | 130 DKK |
1981 | x | 51,500 | 150 DKK |
1982 | x | 57,500 | 170 DKK |
1983 | x | 60,600 | 200 DKK |
1984 | x | 64,800 | 210 DKK |
1985 | x | 53,500 | 240 DKK |
1986 | x | 56,900 | 290 DKK |
1987 | x | 58,700 | 320 DKK |
1988 | x | 62,100 | 340 DKK |
1989 | x | 56,300 | 390 DKK |
1990 | x | 70,600 | 445 DKK |
1991 | x | 60,500 | 490 DKK |
1992 | x | 64,500 | 540 DKK |
1993 | x | 76,500 | 540 DKK |
1994 | x | 90,000 | 540 DKK |
1995 | x | 90,000 | 600 DKK |
1996 | x | 90,000 | 700 DKK |
1997 | 115,000 | 90,000 | 750 DKK |
1998 | 92,000 | 67,000 | 810 DKK |
1999 | 99,000 | 74,000 | 810 DKK |
2000 | 105,000 | 79,000 | 860 DKK |
2001 | 90,000 | 62,000 | 860 DKK |
2002 | 101,500 | 73,000 | 950 DKK |
2003 | 106,500 | 77,000 | 1150 DKK |
2004 | 105,500 | 76,000 | 1150 DKK |
2005 | 95,500 | 65,000 | 1250 DKK |
2006 | 109,500 | 79,000 | 1350 DKK |
2007 | 108,000 | 78,000 | 1475 DKK |
2008 | 101,000 | 69,000 | 1650 DKK |
2009 | 112,000 | 67,000 + 12,000 one day tickets | 1785 DKK |
2010 | 90,650 | 74,000 + 16,650 one day tickets | 1675 DKK |
2011 | 130,000 | 78,500 + 6,490 one day tickets | 1725 DKK |
2012 | 77,500 + 20,000 one day tickets | 1790 DKK |
- Roskilde Festival is possible because of 30,000 volunteers. Without the volunteers, the festival would not exist.
- Approx. 30 full-time employees and over 800 volunteers work year-round to develop and prepare Roskilde Festival.
- Each year, 200 sports and cultural associations help get 24,000 volunteers to work at stalls or as service guards.
- Roskilde Festival becomes Denmark's seventh largest workplace during the festival.
- The festival site: 166,000 m²
- Closed areas: 200,000 m²
- Camping: 940,000 m² (excluding agoras and non-inhabitable areas)
- Parking: 270,000 m²
- In total: 1,576,000 m² (equivalent of 215 football fields).
- The whole area is encircled by over 30 kilometers of fence (which is held up by approx. 12,000 fence posts), more than 5 kilometers of fence panels and 20 kilometers of mobile fence.
- There are 14 kilometers of network cable for telephone, internet, credit cards etc.
- There are about 600 camping squares at Roskilde Festival with approx. 100 tents and 10 pavilions on each square.
- Approx. 50,000 tents are pitched each year at Roskilde Festival.
- The population density at Roskilde Festival is larger than in big cities such as Hong Kong and Shanghai.
- There are 2,500 garbage bins at the festival area and the amount of garbage bags used per festival is approx. 200,000. Waste is sorted in 13 categories.
- The total amount of garbage from the festival in 2012 is approx. 1,600 tons.
- 93 % of the garbage is inflammable and is used in the production of heat and electricity to Roskilde’s citizens. The rest is recycled.
- 97 % of all packaging with a deposit is returned at Roskilde Festival, which includes 1.5 million cans.
- Every festival guest leaves behind approx. 23 kilos of waste.
- In 2011 there were approx. 500 flushing toilets at the festival site and approx. 1200 eco-toilets in the camping area.
- In 2011 the festival introduced urinals hanging on the trees for men and standing urinals specifically for women.
- One of the world’s longest urinals can be found at Roskilde Festival - it is 850 meters long.
- Approx. 10,000 m3 (10 million litres) of water is used during a festival.
- More than 4 tons of organic fair trade coffee is consumed each year at Roskilde Festival.
- The festival uses approx. 400,000 kWt in a week. 5,000 energysaving light bulbs are used during the festival.
- 1.6 tons of batteries were collected during Roskilde Festival 2011.
- During the last three years approx. 3,200 sleeping bags and 2,600 roll mats have been collected and given to homeless people in Copenhagen.
- All the festival posters, flyers and prospectus are printed on eco-labeled, recycled paper.
- 3,500 kilometres of toilet paper is used during a festival - equivalent to the distance between Copenhagen and Cairo. All of it is eco-labelled.
- It is not allowed to distribute flyers at the festival due to environmental causes.
- All electricity at Roskilde Festival comes from sustainable energy.
- In 2011 Roskilde Festival invested 300,000 million in mapping the stall’s energy consumption, in order to reduce it.
- Roskilde Festival has implemented LED lighting on all stages. This reduced Roskilde Festival’s consumption of energy with 70,700 kWh since 2009.
- In 2011 Odeon used 100% LED as the first rock stage in Denmark. At maximum consumption this has reduced the energy use by 70 % since 2008.
- Every kWh of electricity used during Roskilde Festival is invested in renewable energy from wind turbines that are max 2 years old.
- Roskilde Festival pays an extra charge for the power it uses, which is invested in wind energy.
- During Roskilde Festival 2011 30% more recyclable waste was collected than in 2010 and twice as much as in 2001.
- A festival guest consumes on average 33 kg of CO² per week and the average Danish consumer 32 kg of CO² per day (calculated on 2008 figures).
- In 2012 Roskilde Festival will start replacing the current diesel generators with biodiesel.
The festival guests bought approx.:
- 1 million litres of beer
- 4 tons of fair trade coffee
- 40,000 litres of wine
Approx. 3 million meals were sold in 2011 among others:
- 150,000 burgers
- 30,000 pizzas
- 15 tons of french fries
- 100,000 oranges
- 4.7 tonnes bananas
In 2012 all food stalls had at least one vegetarian dish on the menu.
