The best of the fests

It’s fair to say that over the past ten years, the festival-going experience has been transformed. There are now any number of events in Ireland catering to every musical taste, whilst further afield, the festival scene on the Continent continues to grow ever more diverse and interesting. Cheap air travel, very reasonably priced tickets and fantastic line-ups have made a trip to one of the major Continental festivals a very attractive prospect.
Aside from the great music, the side attractions such as arts events, comedy tents, film screenings, clothes and food stalls and general cultural activity combine to make festivals wonderful occasions – and what better way to enjoy the experience than in a fresh and exciting environment? Irish music fans are increasingly interested in what the big continental events have to offer. With this in mind, Hot Press here presents a comprehensive guide to ten of the best festivals in mainland Europe.

BENICASSIM (Spain)
Although not the beach festival many assume it to be (it’s held on a concrete airstrip), Benicassim more than compensates for the lack of sea and sand with a superb line-up, as well as sundry side attractions in the areas of fashion, theatre, dance, films, art and high finance (we’re lying about that last one). Acts on the mouth-watering bill this year include My Bloody Valentine, Leonard Cohen, These New Puritans, Beirut, The Raconteurs, Siouxsie Sioux, Spiritualized, Richard Hawley, Justice, Erol Alkan, Hot Chip, The Ting Tings, The Kills, Sigur Ros and The Brian Joneston Massacre.
How to get there: The nearest airport is Valencia, from where there will be a bus service to Benicassim from July 14-21.

ROCK-am-RING (Germany)
Rock-am-Ring and Rock-im-Park are usually regarded as one festival, with a virtually identical line-up for each. The bill is largely slanted towards hard rock acts, although there is the odd curveball. Together, Rock im Park and Rock am Ring are the largest music festivals in Germany and one of the largest in the world, with a combined attendance of just over 150,000 in 2007. Among the artists on the bill this year are Rage Against The Machine, The Prodigy, Motorhead, The Streets, CSS, Metallica, Against Me!, The Verve, Stereophonics, Queens Of The Stone Age and Jimmy Eat World.
How to get there: The closest airports are Köln-Bonn (80 km) and Düsseldorf (120 km). Whichever airport you go to, get the train to Koblenz, and from there take one of the official shuttle buses to Rock-am-Ring.

HULTSFRED FESTIVAL (Sweden)
Hultsfred employs an open-genre musical policy which means the crowds can expect anything from a metal band to a chill-out DJ and everything in between. Since the first festival in 1986, its attendance has increased from less than 7,000 visitors per year to nearly 30,000 in 2005. Acts this year include Rufus Wainwright, Jimmy Eat World, Fujiya and Miyagi, The Hives, The Only Ones, Rage Against The Machine, Linkin Park and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.
How to get there: The closest airports are Skavsta/Nyköping(Ryanair), Kastrup/Copenhagen and Arlanda/Stockholm. If you fly to Skavsta you can take the Flight Bus to Linköping and go by train from there. If you fly to Kastrup or Arlanda, you should take the train to Hultsfred.
If you arrive early in Sweden you can take the Festival Bus, which will take you directly to the festival from almost anywhere in the country.

LES EUROCKEENNES de BELFORT (France)
Les Eurockeennes de Belfort takes place on a stunning peninsula jagging out into the River Savoureuse. If you have an eye for beautiful locations and an ear for rock/hip hop/Latino/dance/world music, you would be well advised to make your way to this event, where acts this year include Massive Attack, The Offspring, Moby, NERD, Ben Harper, The Gossip, CSS, Calvin Harris, Cat Power, Band Of Horses, Grinderman and MGMT.
How to get there: Belfort is located on the east of France, close to Swiss border The Basel/Mulhouse Euroairport, only 70 kms far from the festival and very easily reachable by highway. EasyJet provides cheap flights from London (LDN/STN), Liverpool, Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam and 15 other European cities. Belfort is also easily reachable by train (www.voyages-sncf.com). From Belfort station, you may take the free shuttles especially provided to reach the festival site and the camping spot.

LOWLANDS (Netherlands)
This three-day alternative music affair pulls together a music line-up littered with global glitterati, as well as offering a cultural insight into the Dutch way of life through films, art, comedy, literature and street theatre. With three massive areas and eight stages of aural pleasure, there will be something to cater for most tastes – especially in the onsite international restaurants. Acts this year include The National, Roisin Murphy, Booka Shade, British Sea Power and Killswitch Engage.
How to get there: The closest airport is Schiphol International (Amsterdam), but Rotterdam and Eindhoven are also nearby. From all airports/cities, trains run to Lelystad or ‘t Harde, where free shuttle buses will take you to the Lowlands entrance/camp sites.

OPEN AIR ST GALLEN (Switzerland)
Each year, the 90,000-strong crowd in the picturesque fields enjoy a packed programme, which flips between internationally-renowned bands and local artists. There are artists from many genres, ranging from rock and indie to world music and electronica. Among the artists on this year’s bill are Kings Of Leon, We Are Scientists, Beck, The Prodigy, The Kooks, The Gossip, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Lean and The Jing Jang Jong, Justice and The Enemy. Other entertainment includes comedy and poetry.
How to get there: Flights are available from Swiss or British Airways. There are trains from Zurich Airport to St. Gallen, and free public transport from St. Gallen station to the festival area with your festival ticket.

ROSKILDE (Denmark)
Roskilde has been dubbed the “Danish Glastonbury”, and it’s not hard to see why, given that it has been around for many years and shares the same hippy-ish vibe as the English event. Just to further the comparison, Jay Z is one of the headliners this year (which means Noel Gallagher is unlikely to be attending), whilst Radiohead will also be giving an airing to tracks from their hugely acclaimed In Rainbows, and Kevin Shields and co. will be giving attendees’ eardrums a good pummelling with some classics from the My Bloody Valentine back catalogue.
Other acts on the typically excellent and eclectic bill include Neil Young, Chemical Brothers, M.I.A., Hot Chip, Slayer, The Notwist, Battles, Bonnie Prince Billy, Gnarls Barkley, Band Of Horses, Sigur Ros, Digitalism and Grinderman.
How to get there: Roskilde is located 35 km from Copenhagen. Handily, you can take the train which stops at the festival’s very own train station!

EYEWITNESS REPORT:
ANDREW "ECO" DUFFY

“Once you get into Copenhagen, it’s a simple train ride to the festival. There’s a very relaxed atmosphere. In terms of scale, it’s kind of like Oxegen – the site is about as big and the tents are around the same size. But everything is within easy distance, so you can see a lot of stuff. There’s a good mix of well-known, established acts and other odd stuff you wouldn’t have seen before.
“In terms of peripheral activities, they have a good arts scene, and there’s a lot of visual stuff, much of which has an interactive element. The campsites are all themed. We went in 2006 and in one of the campsites they were showing World Cup games on the big screens; another one had a skate-rink and there were BMX and skateboard exhibitions during the day. They tend to keep the non-music related stuff in the campsites.
“One of the things I liked was their recycling policy. You can return all of your plastic cups, and they’ll either give you your money back, or you can donate it to charity. That was really good.”

SONAR (Spain)
Sonar is a showcase of the best in leftfield dance and electro, and this summer will once again provide three-days of cutting-edge technology, interactive exhibitions and emerging music. During the day there are over 300 activities, including concerts, films, installations and DJ sets, before the event morphs into a Mediterranean Mecca for clubbers, with a selection of DJs, VJs and shows across four stages. Acts this year include Antipop Consortium, Erol Alkan, Ewan Pearson, Frankie Knuckles, Goldfrapp, Hercules and Love Affair, Justice, M.I.A., Miss Kittin, Neon Neon, Rob da Bank and Soulwax.
How to get there: By day, Sonar takes place in CCCB and MACBA, in Barcelona city centre (Calle Montalegre, 5) and Centre d´Art Santa Mónica. By night, it takes place at the Fira Gran Via 2 in l´Hospitalet, located in the suburbs of Barcelona. Check out www.sonar.es/2008/eng/como.cfm for full bus and subway details.

EYEWITNESS REPORT:
DR BRÉ

“It’s an electronic music festival, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all dodgy house DJs or anything like that. They have a really good selection – last year the Beastie Boys and Devo played, for example. It’s divided into two parts: Sonar By Day and Sonar By Night. Sonar By Day is fairly chilled out and on in the middle of Barcelona, while the nighttime event is outside the city, and you have to get a bus there. It’s very easy to get to and it’s only a 20-minute trip.
“Musically, the two events are very different. Nightime is when all the banging techno fiends come out to play. It takes place in these massive hangars where they used to build airplanes, but there’s a really good atmosphere at the gig. One tip I would give to people is to rent an apartment, because you can get them quite cheaply. You don’t want to be camping in Spain; it’s too hot, get me?"

SZIGET (Hungary)
Held on an island on the Danube, Sziget has grown from its low-key origins in the early ’90s (when it was primarily a student event) to become one of the biggest festivals in Europe, with about half of all visitors coming from outside Hungary. Attendance rates surpassed the quarter-of-a-million mark in 1997, and hit an all time high of 385,000 in 2005, when acts included Franz Ferdinand, Underworld and Nick Cave. Acts this year include REM, Leonard Cohen, Iron Maiden, Kaiser Chiefs, Jamiroquai, The Sex Pistols, Roisin Murphy and Transglobal Underground.
How to get there: The festival area is easy to reach with the local train (HÉV) departing from Batthyány tér (you have to get off the train at the stop Filatorigát). During the Festival, trains run on a more frequent schedule inside Budapest in the morning and evening (in the afternoon also at the weekend) and there are night trains as well.

EYEWITNESS REPORT:
DUAN STOKES
“The biggest thing about Sziget is that it’s kind of like the Phoenix Park turned into a playground for a whole week. You get up to 70,000 people living there for the duration. There’s 40 stages and everything from a swimming pool to gay Hungarian cabaret. The scale of it is huge – there are probably over 100 bars and restaurants open 24 hours a day. It’s like a playground for people within a city. You’re on the main tramline and the thermal baths of Budapest and so on are a mere hop away. You have the city all around you, and then this little oasis of madness going on as well.”

EXIT (Serbia)
Exit is held in a stunning 18th century Belgrade fortress, and its combination of spectacular surroundings and superb music saw it receive the Best European Festival award at last year’s UK Festival Awards. With a line-up that boasts local artists and internationally renowned bands and DJs in addition to plenty of alternative entertainment across 22 stages, Exit is now firmly established as one of Europe’s foremost festivals. Acts on the bill this year include The Sex Pistols, Paul Weller, The Hives, Primal Scream, Francois K, The Gossip, Laurent Garnier, Soulwax, Gogol Bordello, Juliette and the Licks, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Ministry and Booka Shade.
How to get there: Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” airport is 15km away from the centre of Belgrade. There are two places you can get on the bus: one is next to Terminal 1 entrance and the other is in front of the Arrivals entrance. Once you arrive in the centre of Belgrade, there are buses to Novi Sad every 15 to 45 minutes from 4.30 to 22.30.

EYEWITNESS REPORT:
STUART CLARK
“One of the most striking aspects of Exit is the setting; it’s in a castle looking down on the Danube. It’s kind of moving because the bridge you go across was bombed by NATO during the war, and people died. The whole idea with Exit was that it started off as an internal festival, but now they want to bring people over to normalise relations. Rather than cram in billions of bands, they let the acts play full-length sets, which is really nice.
“Interestingly, they won’t take cash – you change your cash for tokens and all beer and food is bought with Exit money. I remember talking to a guy from the radio station, B92, who said, ‘When the war was on, this would have been our biggest fantasy – major rock acts coming to our country.’ There’s a real feelgood vibe – they can’t believe it’s happening in their own back yard.”