NorthSide named Europe’s Best Medium-Sized Festival

Wednesday evening, NorthSide won the prestigious international award as Europe’s Best Medium-Sized Festival at the European Festival Awards

Wednesday evening, on January 16th, the European Festival Awards in the Dutch city of Groningen were held for the tenth consecutive year. Here, NorthSide was nominated in two different categories, and was in fierce competition with some of Europe’s largest festivals. The amazingly exciting evening ended in NorthSide now being able to call itself Europe’s Best Medium-Sized Festival.

The European Festival Awards are held each year in connection with the popular industry festival Eurosonic / Noorderslag, where thousands of representatives from the European music industry meet to attend workshops, seminars and see the best new European bands. The festival is one of the most important events of the year for the European music industry, and therefore European Festival Awards, where the best and most innovative European festivals are celebrated, has always caught a lot of attention.

Each year, one of the highlights is when a series of festivals are nominated in three size categories, after which voting determines who has made the best festivals in Europe in the past year. NorthSide has previously been nominated in the prestigious category Best Medium-Sized Festival, but this year is the first time that the award has gone to the Aarhus based festival.

– I was shocked when they said “And the winner is … NorthSide” from the stage. I hadn’t expected that we’d win at all, so I hadn’t prepared a speech or anything. There were 10 nominees in our category including a few that I admire very much myself. So it was really great to be able to go on stage and receive the award on behalf of my colleagues in Down The Drain Group and everyone else who has helped make NorthSide 2018 the best edition of the festival ever. It really means that the work we have done to give our guests in Ådalen a fantastic experience has created such a ripple effect that we could leave the European Festival Awards with a really important award, says spokesman for NorthSide, John Fogde.

After the evening’s awardshow NorthSide can now call itself Europe’s Best Medium-Sized Festival. This is the first time that a Danish festival wins the category Best Medium-Sized Festival at the European Festival Awards in the ten years that the awards have existed in Groningen.

Efter aftenens prisuddeling kan NorthSide nu kalde sig Europas bedste mellemstore festival. Det er første gang, at en dansk festival vinder i kategorien Best Medium-Sized Festival til European Festival Awards i de ti år, der er blevet delt priser ud i Groningen.