Roskilde Festival at Roskilde, Denmark

Roskilde Festival is one of the largest music festivals in Europe and is held south of Roskilde in Denmark each year. Created in 1971 by two high school students and a promoter, within a year it was taken over by the Roskilde Foundation, who has run it ever since. Technically the festival is a non-profit event that focuses on the development and support of culture, humanism, and music. It’s also a democratic experience; starting with the 2014 festival, participants are able to use nominations and votes to influence which organizations will receive the profits of the event.

Though the festival was initially mostly geared toward hippies, the organizers have never been afraid of change and today it’s geared more toward mainstream youth music of Scandinavia and Europe in general. There are more than 180 bands preforming every year, more than 80,000 paying festival-goers, 21,000 volunteers, 5,000 media members, and 3,000 artists (which equals almost 110,000 people participating).

While the festival officially starts on Thursday, the days preceding are called “warm-up days” and the campsites are available as early as the Sunday before the official open. During warm-up days, up-and-coming Scandinavian bands perform to the early-arriving crowds.