Hultsfred Festival | |
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Genre | Pop, Alternative music, Hip Hop, Metal, Rock, World music, Electronic music, Indie music |
Dates | Mid June |
Location(s) | Hultsfred, Sweden |
Years active | 1986 - present |
Founded by | Putte Svensson, Håkan Waxegård, Per Alexanderson, Kerstin Carlsson |
Website | |
www.hultsfredsfestivalen.se |
The Hultsfred Festival (Swedish: Hultsfredsfestivalen) is an annual music festival held in Hultsfred, Sweden. It takes place at the lake Hulingen during three days in the June or July, from Thursday to Saturday. Since the first festival in 1986, its attendance has increased from 7,500 visitors to approximately 32,000 people in 2005. With its five different stages, the Hultsfred Festival hosts a large number of bands per year (154 in 2007) from all over Scandinavia and the world alike.
Due to an increase of ticket pricing and what the public recognized as a poor lineup in 2007, festival attendance has been declining in recent years. The festival went bankrupt in 2010 and the whole event was cancelled that year, but it was resurrected already by 2011.
FKP Scorpio, festival organizer since 2011, announced on 20 March 2013 that they will move the festival to , Hultsfred goes Stockholm. On 14 April 2013 a new festival association, under the name This Is Hultsfred, announced their intention to organize a festival in Hultsfred 2013 on the traditional site. Scorpio also hosts the Bråvalla festival.
FKP Scorpio stages 13–15 June 2013 a festival in Sigtuna Municipality, north of Stockholm.
This is Hultsfred are working to keep the festival in Hultsfred, planned to 14–15 June 2013.
At the 1999 festival, a 19-year-old woman died of suffocation during a concert with Hole.
In 2006, the festival booked Babyshambles, the band fronted by Pete Doherty. Because of Doherty's widely reported drug addiction, the arrangers of the festival were criticized even before the festival had begun, as the festival profiles itself as being anti-drugs. The arrangers defended the booking by saying that the band was booked for its music and not its members' personal lives. After being delayed for more than an hour, the concert took place with Doherty attacking photographers, throwing a guitar at the audience and finally falling off stage in a failed attempt at stage diving. Immediately after the concert Doherty was arrested by the Hultsfred police and fined for drug possession.