Roskilde Festival
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Roskilde Festival is Denmark's first real music oriented festival originally for hippies but today covering more of the mainstream youth from Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. The festival was created in 1971 by two high school students, Mogens Sandfær and Jesper Switzer Møller, and promoter Carl Fischer. In 1973, the festival was taken over by the Roskilde Foundation, who has since run the festival as a non-profit organisation for development and support of music, culture, and humanism.
Tragedy struck the festival in the year 2000 when nine people were killed. They were trampled to death in the crowd in front of the main stage during the Pearl Jam performance. As a result, massive security measures were installed for the festival in 2001.
Roskilde Festival 2003 gathered more than 65,000 paying people for the concerts, along with 20,000 workers, most of them volunteers.
The music covers such styles as Heavy metal, HipHop, Electronic and Rock, but the festival wants to promote new artists and has setup a special stage for alternative music. It has also become a tradition to let an up and coming Danish band open the Orange Stage on the first day of the festival.
The festival is held annually at the Animal Showgrounds (in recent years simply known as the "Festival Site") south of Roskilde, Denmark.
The 2005 edition will feature artists such as Audioslave, Black Sabbath, D-A-D, Duran Duran, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Brian Wilson and more than 150 other bands and DJ's.
External Links
Official Website of the Roskilde Festival (http://www.roskilde-festival.dk/?code=1)