If you have never been to the Roskilde Festival, which has now become Europe’s largest festival then it is something to definitely include in your list of things to do before you die; it is an extraordinary and truly incredible experience! The festival originated in 1971, back then called the Sound Festival and was organized and run by two high school students. At the start it only included 20 bands or musicians on a single stage, attracting a mere 10,000 people. 
Over the years though the Roskilde Festival has become one of the biggest Danish cultural traditions, bringing together well-known bands including Metallica, U2, Bob Marley, Radiohead, The Killers etc…but has also been the focal starting point for many young and coming artists from all over the world into the music industry. Music can range from folk to jazz, to rock, to hip-hop, to techno, to indie; a true collaboration of all musical genres. Originally held as a 2-day festival in August, Roskilde has now transformed into a 4-day (or week long for some) festival normally during the last week in June or first week in July attracting as many as 100,000 people. It is a time of the year that everyone looks forward to, especially the younger generations as school has just let out. 
People live in the wild during their stay at the festival, sleeping in tents, not showering for the week (you can pay additionally for hot showers) and eating pre-packaged or vendor style foods as open grills are strictly forbidden. Roskilde is also known as the ‘Wet Festival’ because most years (2007 in particular) festival goers encounter stormy weathers with torrential down pours and lots of mud-slide action…. this year however, was completely different.This years Roskilde, though not a completely sold out festival due to rising prices (the cost of the entrance ticket this year was 1785 DKK) and the economic crisis, was still one for the record books. 
The tradition has now become for those who want the absolute best campsites, and an entire week of partying, to arrive the Saturday night before the festival starts (which is on a Thursday) and wait until Sunday at noon when the fence is broken down. Imagine 50,000 people in a mad-rush once the horn is blown, running as fast as possible to their desired camp areas, simply so they can mark their territory. This year this tradition was broken yet again and the fence was torn down on Sunday at 8:35pm, more than 12 hours before it was supposed to be. There are ultimately 2 groups of festival goers—the young Danes who show up with as many as 20 cases of beer on a dolly to ensure it’s a festival to ‘remember’ and those who arrive on Thursday morning and who are their to truly enjoy the musical geniuses that grace one of the seven stages at Roskilde. 
I highly suggest that if you fall in the second category to not arrive on Saturday, as people literally sit and drink from dawn till dusk and there is really not much going on festival wise. However, do not despair, though the ‘best’ campsites, or those closest to the festival entrance will surely be gone by Sunday there are plenty of spaces of available in campsite D. It is probably the furthest campsite away, about a 15-20 minute walk to the festival entrance, but offers those in the latter category a clean and undistributed camping area that has not been subsequently over taken by constant loud noise and unparallel amounts of trash strewn everywhere.
The atmosphere that Roskilde creates is truly magical, as it brings together people of all ages and cultural backgrounds to enjoy one of the greatest festivals of all times. This year music was featured by known artists such as Oasis, Kayne West, Coldplay, Gogol Bodello, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, Slipknot, Hakan Hellstrom and by less familiar but equally as great artists, Jenny Wilson, Lily Allen, Tim Christensen, Friendly Fires, Mike Sheriden, Lucinda Williams, Madness, etc…where 151 acts from 33 nationalities graced the seven stages of Roskilde for four days of non-stop entertainment. Roskilde has evolved tremendously from being an outlet for Danish groups to incorporating world wide music, including artists and musicians from the third world, such as Issa Bagayogo. 
While festival goers are enjoying the music they also have an abundance of other things going on to enjoy, from browsing clothing stall shops which range from vintage to gothic, listening and sampling music from the artists at the official Roskilde CD Shop where music from all artists are also available for purchase on CD, hundreds of different food options to enjoy and different types of entertainment such as arcades and video games. The festival also runs contests and competitions over the week for things like the best themed campsite; and they publish a daily newspaper called the Orange Press that gives gossip and details about all the happenings and activities of the festival—it is however, only written in Danish so if you cannot read Danish save your 10 kroners!
Roskilde also broke two other records this year. The first was the heat wave record; it has been the hottest Roskilde in 33 years with no rain. People spent some of their days sleeping or simply resting under white pavilion tents just to get out of the sun, which was unbearable as temperatures reached as high as 37 degrees C or 100 F. Unfortunately, the festival does not offer sufficient shaded areas to accommodate the masses of people who are trying to take recluse from the sun. This year’s weather really was awful, and the only source of really cooling off was the lake, which many were extremely grateful for.
Normally Danes are begging for the sun to come out because many of the seasons are filled with clouds and grey days, but at this years Roskilde festival people were begging for the sun to disappear just for a few short hours—from 6:30 am until around 9 or 10pm the sun was shining bright. Nonetheless, most people agreed it was better to have an extremely hot festival rather than an extremely wet one.
The other record that was broken was that for the first time in Roskilde history, a speaker was invited to the festival—it was none other than 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus who is known for his micro credit strategies that alleviated poverty in Bangladesh during the 1970s. He spoke to the crowd of over 50,000 people not only about micro credit, but also about the current global climate challenge and rallied everyone to participate in this international struggle. He came on the Orange Stage Sunday night right before Coldplay, the last musical act took the stage and delivered one of the most memorable performances that Roskilde has ever seen, which of course included a tribute to the late Michael Jackson.
The festival also participated in efforts to combat climate change by establishing the communities own climate campaign called ‘Green Footsteps’. They focused on recycling, replacing regularly heated showers with cold and solar heated showers, promoting vegetarian meal options, and actively encouraged festival goers to ride a standing bike for three minutes to help provide energy to power the festival’s Ferris wheel—the sentiment being reduced CO2 emissions. The festival also raised close to 37,000 euros, which was added to their own donation of 306,000 euros all going towards the DanChurchAid organization to support climate change projects in Malawi.
Overall Roskilde 2009 was a complete success; people enjoyed the music, the food, most of the weather and the chance to be a part of one of the largest Danish traditions! For more information visit the official website at www.roskilde-festival.dk and we will see you at Roskilde 2010!
