The Daily Swarm

While many festivals play to genres, Denmark’s Roskilde proves it’s the best large-scale festival on the planet by simply booking the greatest artists in music. Last year’s line up could have been their peak: Radiohead, Neil Young, Slayer, My Bloody Valentine, Judas Priest, Jay-Z. At one point I met a volunteer who told me he had been to the festival every year since it started in 1971. I gave him a fast quiz: “Yeah, well who played in 1978?” He thought for a moment and his eyes lit up. “Bob Marley & The Wailers.” OK, you win. Roskilde has always been the best.

But it’s more than the bands that make Roskilde larger-than-life. It’s a non-profit festival, where earnings are funneled into the The Roskilde Festival Charity Society which has donated nearly $20 million dollars to organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, and Support the War Victims in Iraq. And it’s run by an army of 25,000 volunteers doing every job imaginable. If you volunteer for a day, you get a free pass for the festival. Volunteering at Roskilde has become a rite of passage among Danish music fans and it’s not uncommon to see generations of families working together to support the music and the festival they love.

Last year 110,000 people attended Roskilde. Camping is included in the ticket price, and people start moving in a week before the music starts – which means tens of thousands of people live at the festival for 10 days. With it’s own daily newspaper and radio station, Roskilde is an entire world unto itself. The Daily Swarm sat down with the festival’s head booker Rikke Øxner right before the festival began this week.