Totally Stockholm 1
Lollapalooza The international music festival Lol
lapalooza was launched back in 1991 by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell. This year the festival is going ahead in seven different cities, among them Stockholm, hosting it for the first time. Words: Pelle Tamleht In May last year Live Nation announced that they are bringing the international festival Lollapalooza to Sweden and Stockholm. Among the main attractions, we find names like Foo Fighters, Travis Scott, Chance The Rapper, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish and Swedes Hov1, Laleh, Eric Prydz, Rebecca & Fiona and The Hives. In total there will be 70 artists performing across four stages. A wide mix where half of the names could fill one of our larger stadiums all by themselves. Now, they’ll instead be collaborating to fill up the giant open space that is Gärdet for three days in June. “Tickets are selling really well, there is a huge interest in Lollapalooza,” says Kristoffer Åkesson, marketing and communications director at Live Nation. “Historically it has always been hard the first time you put on a festival, but the interest in this one has been constant ever since a year ago when we released the news. We also see a lot of ticket sales from abroad, which is great. If you look at the line-up, however, it might not be such a big surprise. I mean how can I say this humbly - it’s a damn good line-up that’s for sure.” It’s one of the world’s biggest festivals you are bringing over here to Sweden, is that a big responsibility to have on your shoulders? Yes it is, especially towards Stockholm as a city and Sweden, which is such a strong country musically. Stockholm has never had a festival of this magnitude before, and that of course comes with great responsibility. But that’s also what makes this so much fun and important. We have worked for many years to make this happen. How much can you direct proceedings here from Stockholm? A lot. It’s kind of part of Lollapalooza’s concept to have a strong local anchoring. At the same time there should always be a common thread going through the festival, regardless if you visit it in Sao Paolo, Chicago or in Stockholm. There’s a fair amount of things that are new to the Swedish festival crowd, the festival for example will have no age limit and there’s even a particular area designed for the youngest visitors – Kidsapalooza. Exactly, finally music fans who are also parents can bring their kids, something we know that a lot of people have asked for, for a long time. It’s a perfect way of showing the next generation the power of live music at a festival. Apart from that we will also put a lot of effort into the food and drink programme, something that is also part of the whole experience at Lollapalooza. How many visitors can you fit in? Gärdet is huge, so we can fit a lot of people – the area will be 190,000 square metres. But we cannot really say an exact number right now, and we want to keep it a bit constrained this first year, but you can bet there will be a lot of people. The line-up is bordering on the insane, and I suspect very expensive. I suppose that has to do with your ability to book the artists for several festivals at the same time? It is an extremely ambitious line-up, but that’s how it should be. As always there’s a dialogue with other 10 festivals and organisers but many of the artists are also the kind of acts that we have had a close relationship with for many years. And Lollapalooza Sweden is planning to stay for the long term, one must presume? Yeah, absolutely. Our hope and plan is that it will be a recurring festival for several years ahead – Stockholm deserves that. People have made a bit of fun of your platinum package, costing 20,000 Swedish kronor including massage, hotel and concierge service. Have you sold any of them? Yes we absolutely have, but it’s of course a limited number and it would be strange to put a lot of emphasis on that. But what you can say is that this is an area where Sweden honestly is lagging behind, if you look at it from an international perspective. If you look at the states or other parts of Europe, it’s something that has been offered for many years, and it’s something there is clear demand for. Do you think it’s a phenomenon that will take off in Sweden too, having VIP-tickets? Yes absolutely. Even if the word “VIP” perhaps is a little overused as a term. There are a lot of ticket buyers who are interested in this type of packages nowadays and we have seen a dramatic rise in demand for it, both for festivals and larger one-off shows. Lollapalooza takes place at Gärdet between June 28-30