- A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise
A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise, also known as simply Lowlands, is a
music festival , held annually in theNetherlands in August. Lowlands is, together withPinkpop , one of the biggest and most popular music festivals in the country, with about 60,000 visitors, over 200 acts and more than ten stages every year which are named according to theNATO phonetic alphabet , apart from the Grolsch stage, named after the beer brewerGrolsch , who has been the main sponsor of the festival for the last few years. The majority of stages are inside huge tents - insurance against the Dutch climate - with the main stage's tent, Alpha, being approximately the size of a premiership football team's pitch.The festival is held in
Biddinghuizen , very close to theWalibi World amusement park .Besides music (
alternative music , pop, rock, dance, hip hop), there is also an indoor and an outdoor cinema,stand-up comedy ,street theatre andtheatre .Origins
Lowlands began as one of the very first Dutch pop festivals - " A Flight to Lowlands Paradise " that was organised in November 1967 by the Utrecht based artist and painter Bunk Bessel. This festival took place in the Margriethal of
Jaarbeurs Utrecht. The entry fee was 10 guilders (approximately 4.50 euros), including breakfast. This 18-hour-long event had no top-acts but included experimental theatre, dancing, poetry, films, body painting and massage. The Utrecht municipality did not pay up the promised subsidy of 8,000 guilders after the event.On the
28 December ,1968 the festival was held a second time, postponed by a month from its original date of23 November to try and getJimi Hendrix to attend the event. This could not be arranged, and other large acts such asJeff Beck and Jethro Tull were canceled. However,Pink Floyd remained on the bill. In the end, the show was sold out to its capacity of 18,000 visitors, and for many people it was a cold and disappointing experience as they were unable to get inside. Inevitably, there was unrest and the police had to be involved.In 1993, organizer Willem Venema began another festival under the name " A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise".
Life of Agony released a CD of their unplugged set from the Lowlands Festival in 1997, entitledUnplugged at the Lowlands Festival '97 Performances
2000
2003
2006
External links
* [http://www.lowlands.nl/ The official festival site]
* [http://lowlands.oma-g.com Officially confirmed bands]
* [http://www.lowlandsforum.nl International forum for visitors and information]
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