Pukkelpop 2017

[arcuse]

13 hours ago, Semprini said:

Dance Hall has Moderat and possibly Sigma, with the recent trend being DJ's to finish

Sigma is gonna bring a live set, they're 100% gonna be at the Mainstage. Though I follow you in your thinking. 

I'm thinking Tash Sultana, Future Islands, Charlotte De Witte and Frank Carter could come over from the RW line up.

[DDave]

Don't think we'll get Future Islands

Either Wed 16th or Thursday 17th Paredes de Coura -Portugal

18th Green Man 

Sat 19th La Route Du Rock

Which leaves either The Thursday or Sunday for Lowlands. Meaning at best they only have the Thursday left for Pukkelpop which is already pretty stacked.

5 festivals in 5 countries in 5 nights. Doable but I just don't see it, especially with them already being at RW 

[Name taken]

Am I right about this?
Chance the rapper cancelled at Haven Festival in Copenhagen.
Bon iver added to the line-up. (august 12)
Do I see opportunities?
 

[DDave]

4 minutes ago, Name taken said:

Am I right about this?
Chance the rapper cancelled at Haven Festival in Copenhagen.
Bon iver added to the line-up. (august 12)
Do I see opportunities?
 

Possible but unlikely.

More probably to do with the National/Bon Iver link. They host their own festival (Eaux Claires) and are now hosting Haven.

[SilverLining]

anyone got a full day by day image with the new additions?

[arcuse]

1 hour ago, SilverLining said:

anyone got a full day by day image with the new additions?

edit: nvm no

Edited May 3, 2017 by arcuse

[SarahEmpre]

Last weekend is was attending Groezrock, a belgian punk/rock/hardcore festival  that takes place in Meerhout (15km far away from Hasselt) and that had shared some bands with PKP through the years.

I was having some beers with some people from the organization and with one guy from a small belgian booking agency who has artists in both festivals (Groezrock & Pukkelpop) and some interesting information came from that conversation.

First of all, PKP'16 had the lowest attendance since 2009, with "only" 85% os the combitickets sold, despite having Rihanna in their line-up. Also, there was one of the days, whose day-tickets were poorly sold (I think friday). Also they realized that some rock bands as Biffy Clyro and classic artist as Noel Gallagher got so little audience despite playing good slots at the Main Stage. They analyzed the situation and got the following conclusions:

1- Tickets should go on sale at least one month before as usual. Going on sale so late gives advantage to their competence in Belgium and Central Europe.

2- Try to avoid expensive bookings of super-ego stars as Rihanna. She was a bad value for the huge ammount of money they payed for her. 

3- Program Main Stage with more hip-hop, electronic and success newcomers bands, mixed with safe bets as headliners

4- Reduce the amount of rock in the line-up, and all the rock bands should be Mtv Rocks bands or beligan bands. No hardcore, no metal, no extreme music. Make Shelter Stage dissapear and stop working with some booking agencies as Avocado or Destiny Tourbooking

5- No more "oldies" bands booked for Main Stage. Exceptions: safe-bets as Muse or The Killers (in the future) or huge electronic acts as The Prodigy.

6- Improve Marquee Stage and fullfill it with all kind of music styles. Make it much stronger. 

7-Make the best electronic and hip hop line-up in PKP history.

All that facts have made that some new rock festivals as Brakrock or some classic as Stoj Festivals have booked biggest bands now that PKP don't book the top rock/punk/heavy bands of european august circuit. Also Lokerse Feesten is building their biggest line-up of its history taking oldies artists and rock bands that PKP has decided not to book anymore (this years you can find there Pixies, Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Megadeth, Ben Harper, Offspring, Letfield, Madness, Pennywise or Less Than Jake).

These guys think that this new direction is not improving Pukkelpop ticket-selling (just their opinion), and is going to make the festival even younger and it's going to make the food and drinks selling even lower, as young people do no have so much money to spend, and they drink in the camping.

The fact is that two months and a half after the 1st announceent there is still lot of hotel rooms avaliable in Hasselt (Express By HI was avaliable until two weeks ago).

I just wanted to share that coversation with all of you. 

 

[DDave]

59 minutes ago, SarahEmpre said:

Last weekend is was attending Groezrock, a belgian punk/rock/hardcore festival  that takes place in Meerhout (15km far away from Hasselt) and that had shared some bands with PKP through the years.

I was having some beers with some people from the organization and with one guy from a small belgian booking agency who has artists in both festivals (Groezrock & Pukkelpop) and some interesting information came from that conversation.

First of all, PKP'16 had the lowest attendance since 2009, with "only" 85% os the combitickets sold, despite having Rihanna in their line-up. Also, there was one of the days, whose day-tickets were poorly sold (I think friday). Also they realized that some rock bands as Biffy Clyro and classic artist as Noel Gallagher got so little audience despite playing good slots at the Main Stage. They analyzed the situation and got the following conclusions:

1- Tickets should go on sale at least one month before as usual. Going on sale so late gives advantage to their competence in Belgium and Central Europe.

2- Try to avoid expensive bookings of super-ego stars as Rihanna. She was a bad value for the huge ammount of money they payed for her. 

3- Program Main Stage with more hip-hop, electronic and success newcomers bands, mixed with safe bets as headliners

4- Reduce the amount of rock in the line-up, and all the rock bands should be Mtv Rocks bands or beligan bands. No hardcore, no metal, no extreme music. Make Shelter Stage dissapear and stop working with some booking agencies as Avocado or Destiny Tourbooking

5- No more "oldies" bands booked for Main Stage. Exceptions: safe-bets as Muse or The Killers (in the future) or huge electronic acts as The Prodigy.

6- Improve Marquee Stage and fullfill it with all kind of music styles. Make it much stronger. 

7-Make the best electronic and hip hop line-up in PKP history.

All that facts have made that some new rock festivals as Brakrock or some classic as Stoj Festivals have booked biggest bands now that PKP don't book the top rock/punk/heavy bands of european august circuit. Also Lokerse Feesten is building their biggest line-up of its history taking oldies artists and rock bands that PKP has decided not to book anymore (this years you can find there Pixies, Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Megadeth, Ben Harper, Offspring, Letfield, Madness, Pennywise or Less Than Jake).

These guys think that this new direction is not improving Pukkelpop ticket-selling (just their opinion), and is going to make the festival even younger and it's going to make the food and drinks selling even lower, as young people do no have so much money to spend, and they drink in the camping.

The fact is that two months and a half after the 1st announceent there is still lot of hotel rooms avaliable in Hasselt (Express By HI was avaliable until two weeks ago).

I just wanted to share that coversation with all of you. 

 

Makes sense and ties in with how the line up has panned out. 

The organisers really messed up in my opinion in 2015 with a really substandard and cost cutting line up, especially headliner wise. I think this put a lot of people off including me. Add those to the people who would have been put off by the booking of Rihanna (and rightly so) and that's a fair chunk of people missing. Add the people who won't be going this year due to the loss of the shelter and I think this year will be less attended than last year, despite Chokri's optimsm. The growth of other Belgian festivals  and repeat headline bookings from the last 3-4 years don't help the cause either. 

They have achieved the ambition of having the strongest dance line up in PKP history, that's for sure though and the Marquee is pretty strong.

 

Edited May 4, 2017 by DiscothequeDave

[Semprini]

Thanks for sharing that Sarah - really insightful and interesting read!

As Dave mentioned, much of it we've either experienced first hand or suspected from the rumours and line up announcements but nice to finally have some kind of confirmation. Not sure it felt like there were less people there last year but the transient nature of the festival's crowd often means it's hard to gauge how busy it is? Coupled with that there were more stages and the arena was bigger then ever before, both of which are going to make a difference. The Main Stage is a difficult one as aside from some obvious bankers, you can never tell how busy it's going to be? I don't really spend enough time there to say with any authority whether it's changed much over the past few years but I was very surprised by the small crowds for 'big' bands at the Main last summer. Aside from Noel, The Chems wasn't busy by any stretch of the imagination and I'd describe the crowd for LCD as sparse. I stood pretty much dead centre on the first crush barrier and there was plenty of room in front of me if I'd have wanted to move forward.

Whatever we might think of this year's headliners, I've pretty sure they'll all get big crowds. Bastille are very popular with the main PKP demographic, Editors are (bizarrely) always a big draw, the xx are growing in popularity and very 'of the moment' and Mumfords are arguably the biggest and most popular act on the whole bill. They're combined cost is probably the same as Rhianna on her own so looks on paper to be a smart move by the organisers. If the numbers were down last year and the crowd too spread out around the site then it makes sense to reduce the stages. I'm all for quality over quantity and it's personally great to hear (and see) that the Marquee line up and dance music on offer are both being targeted for improvement.

The festival does seem to be at a bit of a crossroads though and there's obviously the danger they will lose some of the older crowd. PKP has always tried to cater musically for as wide an audience as possible and that's been a strength of the festival. If this approach isn't now working and no longer what the bulk of their audience want then they'd be fools to blindly carry on doing the same thing. The festival's too big to become niche, plus there's plenty of well established others that have cornered the markets, so it's becoming even more important that they make the right choices. This is looking like being a massive year for them.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Semprini

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

I'm toying with the idea of an eu festival. Any reason (apart from the lineup) why Pukkelpop over Dour or lowlands? 

[Semprini]

21 minutes ago, JC-Mo'Fucka said:

I'm toying with the idea of an eu festival. Any reason (apart from the lineup) why Pukkelpop over Dour or lowlands? 

I've only been to PKP but I know a few people who've done the three and they said they're all well organised, high quality festivals. You won't go wrong with any of them so it'll probably come down to your own line up preference. As much as I love PKP, Dour looks amazing this year, particularly the DJs. Lowlands has a lot more going on besides the music and would be a more rounded experience. They're also re-vamping a lot of the site, including the two main tents.

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

Cheers mate, having a good think. I went to flow festival last year but wanna try something new. 

[tczy]

Flow Festival and Pukkelpop having been to both (the former at least 5 or 6 times now), are like Semprini said, very high quality festivals where things just tend to work. Some differences that come to mind are:  

- Food/drink queues at PKP are non-existent compared to Flow: At PKP these nifty tokens are pre-bought and no cash/card is used. It's also a lot cheaper. 6€ for a beer at Flow vs. 2,5€ at PKP (this was in 2013 though).

- Shows at Flow ends a few hours sooner than at PKP and the area is smaller so there's a few connotations: 1) The schedule at Flow is tighter so at times it's a rush from stage to stage and it was at least last year very packed. 2) At Flow you're bound to need to look for afterparties which can be awesome but also some overly packed club.

Apart from those, typical city vs. camping festival differences. Mornings at PKP are hot and sticky where as at Flow you'll wake up at home/hotel and have a proper breakfast and shower before beginning the day again. 

I'm actually doing both this summer. Going to be a rough 10-ish days. 

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

Sounds awesome tczy. I'd go to flow every year if it wasn't so expensive. Well worth the money for a one off though. 

[tczy]

19 hours ago, JC-Mo'Fucka said:

Sounds awesome tczy. I'd go to flow every year if it wasn't so expensive. Well worth the money for a one off though. 

Yeah, I kind of feel obliged to go every year. It's the festival for us here in Helsinki, and the FOMO is unreal. 

[Trufflehound]

Stage splits are up. No real surprises. Confirmed that The Shelter has gone. So has the Wablief?

[SilverLining]

Pukkelpop confirmed the death of Shelter and Wabelief (sorry about spelling), stage splits are out too.

Only issue is theyve not filled in all the acts or maybe some people O really wanted to see have pulled out like Mount Kimbie which ill be gutted about

[TheKiewitGuy]

RIP Shelter and Wablieft.

https://www.tvl.be/nieuws/pukkelpop-schrapt-podia-de-wablief-en-the-shelter-verdwijnen-44153?utm_content=bufferc1169&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Will translate later but I'm am in class right now.

[SilverLining]

I'm mistaken the full thing didn't populate properly at first it looks like they've fixed it now.

[Death By Sexy]

+ 8 names, from whom only Forest Swords is interesting

https://www.pukkelpop.be/en/news/stage-layout-revealed-8-new-names/6/

Gutted about the loss of Shelter. Last year, it was pretty busy. I am also sad that they removed the Wablief. Sad day for a pkp fan.

 

I am btw new here! This will be my 6th time pukkelpop (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016). I live 3km from the festivalsite, so it is more like a local trip for me

[SilverLining]

I  quickly collated into an image for people. Also I asked last year and found some gems, who are the lesser known, earlyish on bands I should go check out?

Edited May 10, 2017 by SilverLining

[pryce]

damn the Marquee and the Club on the last day are good!

Edited May 10, 2017 by pryce

[Death By Sexy]

1 hour ago, SilverLining said:

I  quickly collated into an image for people. Also I asked last year and found some gems, who are the lesser known, earlyish on bands I should go check out?

I would say: Vince Staples, Frances, Sigrid, Glints, Denzel Curry, Tove lo, Sampha, Perfume Genius, Forest Swords, The Amazons, Nordmann, Steak Number Eight, Dub FX, Death Grips, Car Seat Headrest, Vuurwerk, Ho99o9, Culture Abuse, Faisal

[DDave]

Some real surprises there. Amazed Ryan Adams and Afghan Whigs are on the main. 

[bluenova]

19 minutes ago, Death By Sexy said:

I would say: Vince Staples, Frances, Sigrid, Glints, Denzel Curry, Tove lo, Sampha, Perfume Genius, Forest Swords, The Amazons, Nordmann, Steak Number Eight, Dub FX, Death Grips, Car Seat Headrest, Vuurwerk, Ho99o9, Culture Abuse, Faisal

Do you think they're in the same order that they'll play? The clashfinder's been updated, but not in the same order - can't remember who did it, but still some differences.