The opening night of Eurosonic Noorderslag saw the 5th annual European Festival Awards take place. The best music festivals, artists and promoters of 2013 were revealed. The ceremony also included live performances from Irish band KODALINE, Germany’s MILKY CHANCE and PRATA VETRA (from Latvia) who closed the show.
Germany proved it is a force to be reckoned within the festival scene, taking home a total of five awards: Best Indoor Festival went to Metal Hammer Paradise, Berlin Festival won Best Line Up, and the Melt! Festival earned Best Medium-Sized Festival. The two most important industry-related awards were Promoter of the Year going to FKP Scorpio and the Lifetime achievement Award to Marek Lieberberg, founder of Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park festival.
Eastern Europe also did well in this year’s awards with the highly coveted Best Major Festival Award going to Serbia’s EXIT Festival, which will celebrate it’s 15th Anniversary in 2014. B.my.Lake in Hungary took the Best New Festival title and FUSION Festival in Romania won the Best Small Festival Award.
The host country of the awards also scooped an award with Holland’s Lowlands being named the Artists’ Favourite Festival.
The Green Operations Award went to Way Out West in Sweden and Switzerland’s Paleo Festival won the new YES GROUP Health & Safety Innovation Award, which recognises innovative ways festivals have enhanced health and safety within their spaces.
The crew of the MELT! Festival celebrates its award
Artists were also recognised for their contribution to the European festival scene with the UK’s ARCTIC MONKEYS winning the award for Headliner of The Year, Newcomer of the Year went stateside to Las Vegas band IMAGINE DRAGONS and the Festival Anthem went to DAFT PUNK for ‘Get Lucky’ with the one and only Nile Rogers recording a special thank-you message for the show.
James Drury, MD of Festival Awards Ltd, which organises the Awards said: “Festivals are immensely popular with people across Europe and it’s been a delight to toast the achievements of a great 2013 with the best in the continent. A huge congratulations to all the winners, and to all those finalists. It’s a great accolade to make it into the top 10, as we had hundreds of festivals take part this year.”
Christof Huber, YOUROPE, adds: “It’s great to see how the awards have grown over the past 5 years and to see so many festivals taking part, which is testament to the thriving European festival scene.”
Presented in association with YOUROPE and Eurosonic Noorderslag the European Festival Awards are the only pan-European body solely dedicated to recognising the contributions and achievements of the event organisers and performing artists that generate billions of Euros for local economies and brighten up the summer for tens of millions of festival-goers each year.
This year the winners were decided by a combination of public votes and the EFA jury – made up of journalists, booking agents, festival organisers – who had a 25 per cent say in the final outcome of the public voted categories. More than 620,000 votes from festival fans all over the world we cast, showing that passion for festivals across the continent continues to grow.
The Winners:
YES Group H&S Innovation Award In association with the YES Group and ICM&SS
Paleo Festival (CH)
Best New Festival
B.my.Lake (HU)
Festival Anthem of the Year
Daft Punk – Get Lucky
Best Indoor Festival
Metal Hammer Paradise (DE)
The Green Operations Award In association with the GO Group
Way Out West (SE)
Best European Festival Line-Up in association with Company NA
Berlin Festival (DE)
Newcomer of the Year In association with Eurosonic Noorderslag
Imagine Dragons
Artist’s Favourite European Festival
Lowlands (NL)
Headliner of the Year
Arctic Monkeys
Promoter Of The Year
FKP Scorpio (DE)
Best Small Festival
FUSION Festival (RO)
Best Medium-Sized Festival In association with Eventbrite
Melt! Festival (DE)
Best Major Festival in association with Intelligent Venue Solutions
EXIT Festival (RS)
Lifetime Achievement Award
Marek Lieberberg (DE)
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