festnoise | Music & Festivals

Jun 1

Jun 1 Roskilde, a non-profit music festival since 1972

I'm probably repeating myself here but Roskilde is probably my favorite festival, at least for what it represents as a music festival. And if we talk about major festivals there is something that makes this festival unique, it’s 100 % non-profit. The Danish festival donates everything to charity after each edition and they have been doing so every year since 1972. Due to the coronavirus this year will be the first interruption of an impressive and historic streak, precisely when the festival was supposed to celebrate its 50 anniversary.

The Roskilde festival is one of the largest and oldest music festivals in the whole world. Created in 1971 by two high school students, Mogens Sandfær and Jesper Switzer Møller, and promoter Carl Fischer. Just one year after, the festival was taken over by the Roskilde Foundation, which since that moment has run the festival as a non-profit organization for development and support of music, humanism, culture and non-profit projects all over the world.

Main stage at Roskilde festival. Photo by Stiig Hougesen

But the festival it's also an example of transparency, and in the festival website they publish every year how much profit they make and how they donate it. That's how we know that since the first edition back in the 70s Roskilde festival has donated an estimated amount of € 55 million to Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, Support the Victims in Iraq, Save the Children, The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and many more organizations.

Roskilde Festival Charity Society, the association and organizer behind Roskilde festival, receives practically all its funds and identifies the projects and initiatives they want to support ensuring synergy between the festival's core values, focus areas and donations. As an example, in 2018 after an edition with 184 shows and an impressive program including writers, performers, speakers, graffiti artists and architects, the festival generated a profit of €2,572,989. An amount used to support future generations, create new communities, engage in the fight against corruption, tax evasion and poverty, create a greener world, inspire more mutual respect and a long etcetera. If you want to see how Roskilde donated all the profits, click here.