2016 EUROPEAN FESTIVAL AWARDS - the winners

The 2016 EUROPEAN FESTIVAL AWARDS are done and dusted, with live performances from James TW, Roosevelt and The Children of the Revolution, and those winners are:

Best Small European Festival: SNOWBOMBING (Austria)

Best Line Up: PRIMAVERSA SOUND (Spain)

Brand Activation Award: PUKKLEPOP - Smart Energy Grid (Belgium)

Agent of the Year: NATASHA BENT (Coda Agency, UK)

Best Indoor Festival: REEPERBAHN Festival (Germany)

Best New Festival: MAD COOL (Spain)

Artist’s Favourite Festival: SZIGET (Hungary)

Headliner of the Year: MUSE

Health & Safety Award: SOUTHSIDE Festival (Germany)

Best Medium Sized Festival: PALEO FESTIVAL Nyon (Switzerland)

Green Operation award: SHAMBALA Festival (UK)

Newcomer of the Year: DUA LIPA

Promoter of the Year: AFTER ART (Poland)

Best Major Festival: ROCK WERCHTER (Belgium)

Award for Excellent and Passion: CHRISTOF HUBER

Lifetime Achievement Award: DAN PANAITESCU

European Festival Awards 2015

The 2015 European Festival Awards ceremony at the EuroSonic convention in Groningen in the Netherlands took place last night. A gala dinner, hosted by Ben Challis and Gordon Masson, featured live performances from Dutch band Kovacs, Scotlands White and Carnival Youth from Latvia, and a special performance from the star sudded Natural Peace and Love Orchestra.  With over 800,000 votes cast by fans, the winners are:

Best New European Festival: Untold Festival (Romania)

Best Indoor Festival: Les Transardentes (Belgium)

The Green Opererations Award: Tollwood Festival (Germany)

Agent of the Year: Emma Banks (CAA)

Festival Anthem of the Year: Major Lazer with Lean On

Best Small European Festival: Happiness Festival (Germany)

Artists Favourite European Festival: Rock Werchter (Belgium)

The Health & Safety Innovation Award: Das Fest (Germany)

The Best Medium Sized European Festival: Telekom Volt (Hungary)

Promoter of the Year: Horstmann Unterbehmensgruppe (Germany)

Newcomer of the Year: Hozier

Best European Festival Line Up: Sziget (Hungary)

Best Headliner: The Prodigy

Best Major European Festival: Untold Festival (Romania)

Award for Excellence and Passion: Prof Chris Kemp (YES and MOM)

Lifetime Achievement Award: Jean Louis Brossard and Beatrice Mace

European Festival Awards .... and the winners are .....

The 6th Festival Awards Europe are done and dusted and at a star studded gala celebration at De Oosterport on January 14th at the start of this year's EuroSonic festival and conference in Groningen, host Ben Challis welcomed guests and winners and live performances from MØ (Denmark), Jack Garratt (UK) and Aurora Asknes (Sweden) - as well as a special surprise opening act, The Illegal Terms, made up of Ben on vocals, Michal Kaščák, organiser of the Pohoda Festival on drums, Open Air St Gallen's organiser Christof Huber on guitar alongside Virtual Festivals' Steve Jenner, and Das Fest booker and boss of Green Events Europe, Holger Jan Schmidt,  on bass. The Illegal Terms gave  barnstorming renditions of 'Blittzkrieg Bop' and 'I Fought The Law'. Sponsoring partners for the Awards included hosts Yourope, the European festivals association, EuroSonic and Eventbrite, Intelligent Venue Solutions, Plug Go and Snack Media. With over 1.2 milllion votes cast in the public categories this year, the Arctic Monkey's won two awards for Headliner of the Year and Festival Anthem of the Year, collected on the night by the bands long time manager Geoff Barradale. Hungary's Sziget won Best Major Festival, Glastonbury picked up the Best Lineup Award for their Metallica and Dolly Parton inspired summer bash, and Stromae picked up best newcomer.

Best Small European Festival - Festival Tuaron Nowa Muzyka (Poland) 

Best Indoor Festival - I love Techno (Belgium)

The Green Operations Award - Roskilde Festival (Denmark)

Newcomer Of The Year - Stromae

Artist’s Favourite European Festival  - Primavera Sound in Barcelona (Spain)

Best New European Festival - Down the Rabbit Hole (The Nederlands)

Festival Anthem of the Year - Arctic Monkeys – R U Mine

YES Group H&S Innovation Award  - Mojo Concerts

Best Medium-Sized European Festival - Sea Dance Festival (Montenegro)

Promoter Of The Year -  Live Nation (Belgium)

Best European Festival Line-Up - Glastonbury Festival (UK)

Best Headliner - Arctic Monkeys

Best Major European Festival - Sziget (Hungary)

Lifetime Achievement Award - Melvin Benn 

Award For Excellence And Passion - Rikke Oxner

The European Border Breakers Awards (EBBAs), which give recognition to new European acts who have achieved cross-border chart success were also confirmed at a ceremony hosted by Jools Holland earlier in the day at EuroSonic. The ten winners were announced in October, with three - Melanie De Biasio, MØ and Indila - performing live  (as did previous winners, The Ting Tings), The other seven nominated acts were Klangkarussell, Milky Chance, Hozier, The Common Linnets, Todd Terje, Tove Lo and John Newman. Last year's Dutch Eurovision entrants The Common Linnets were handed the Public Choice Award after an online vote, and Jungle were awarded the EBBA Best Festival Act prize.

Benn honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award at the EFAs

Melvin Benn

Melvin Benn is to be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's European Festival Awards at EuroSonic in Groningen in January. Melvin Benn is a music promoter and Managing Director of Festival Republic, the company behind UK and overseas festivals including Latitude, Reading & Leeds and Electric Picnic, and the production of live music events including the BBC Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park events Proms in the Park and Festival in a Day and Longitude, Summer Nights at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and the Marlay Park Concerts in Ireland. Benn is also a director of environmental campaign group Julie's Bicycle and has been a leader in sustainable event production: three of Festival Republic's events hold the highest Creative Industry Green rating, 3 stars (Latitude, Reading & Leeds).

European Festival Awards final shortlists announced!

The votes have been counted and we can now reveal the finalists in this year’s European Festival Awards, as decided by Europe’s festival-goers. This year – the 6th edition - saw a new record set with over 1.2 million votes cast by fans for their favourite festivals and artists, an astonishing 100% increase on last year’s figures. Some of the more specialists categories are decided by panels of industry professionals, including Artists’ Favourite Festival, Green Operations Award and Promoter Of The year, and this panel also exercises a 25% say in the final outcome of the public-voted selection. The winners will be announced on-stage at the European Festival Awards gala ceremony which returns to crown the opening night of Eurosonic Noorderslag in Groningen, The Netherlands on Wednesday 14th January 2015 hosted by Ben Challis.

Best Major European Festival

in association with PlugGo

• Colours of Ostrava (Czech Republic)

• Electric Picnic (Ireland)

• EXIT Festival (Serbia)

• Hurricane & Southside (Germany)

• NOS Alive (former Optimus Alive) (Portugal)

• Rock am Ring/ Rock Im Park (Germany)

• Rock Werchter (Belgium)

• Roskilde Festival (Denmark)

• Sziget Festival (Hungary)

• Tomorrowland (Belgium)

• Wacken Open Air (Germany)

• Woodstock Festival (Poland)

Best Medium-Sized European Festival

• Audioriver (Poland)

• Berlin Festival (Germany)

• Best Kept Secret (The Netherlands)

• Electric Castle Festival (Romania)

• Hideout Festival (Croatia)

• Lovefest (Serbia)

• MasterCard Balaton Sound (Hungary)

• OFF Festival Katowice (Poland)

• Pohoda Festival (Slovakia)

• Sea Dance Festival (Montenegro)

• Volt Festival (Hungary)

• Way Out West (Sweden)

Best Small European Festival

• B.my.Lake (Hungary)

• Feest in het Park (Belgium)

• Festival Tauron Nowa Muzyka (Poland)

• Grape Festival (Slovakia)

• Happiness Festival (Germany)

• Indiependence (Ireland)

• Into The Great Wide Open (The Netherlands)

• Jazz in the Park (Romania)

• PLAI (Romania)

• The Garden Festival (Croatia)

Best New European Festival

• Bergfestival (Austria)

• Down The Rabbit Hole (The Netherlands)

• Festival The Brave (Holland)

• Imaginarium Festival (France)

• MS Artville (Germany)

• Sea Dance Festival (Montenegro)

• Serbia Wonderland Festival (Serbia)

• Signal Festival (Czech republic)

• Sunscape Festival (Malta)

• Your'in (Belgium)

Best Indoor Festival

• Blues in Hell (Norway)

• I Love Techno (Belgium)

• I Love Techno (France)

• Metal Hammer Paradise (Germany)

• Reeperbahn Festival (Germany)

• Rolling Stone Weekender (Germany)

• Sensation (The Netherlands)

• Sonar (Spain)

• TiMAF (Romania)

• Waves (Austria & Slovakia)

Newcomer Of The Year

in association with Eurosonic Noorderslag

• Birth of Joy

• George Ezra

• Hozier

• Jungle

• London Grammar

• Mighty Oaks

• Milky Chance

• Mo

• Royal Blood

• Stromae

Best Headliner

• Arcade Fire

• Arctic Monkeys

• Imagine Dragons

• Jack White

• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

• Outkast

• Pearl Jam

• QOTSA

• Stromae

• The Black Keys

Festival Anthem of the Year

• Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine

• Atomic Bomb! - The Atomic Bomb! Band and Special Guests 

• Black Keys - Lonely Boy

• Calvin Harris - Summer

• Ellie Goulding - Burn

• George Ezra - Budapest

• Outkast - Hey Ya

• Pharell Williams- Happy

• Royal Blood - Come on Over

• Stromae - Papaoutai

The following awards are decided purely by our jury of industry experts:

Best European Festival Line-Up

• Best Kept Secret (The Netherlands)

• Glastonbury (United Kingdom)

• Open'er Festival (Poland)

• Hurricane/Southside (Germany)

• Oya Festival (Norway)

• Pinkpop (The Netherlands)

• Primavera (Spain)

• Rock am Ring / Rock im Park (Germany)

• Rock Werchter (Belgium)

• Sziget (Hungary)

Artist’s Favourite European Festival 

• Glastonbury (United Kingdom)

• Hove (Norway)

• Oya Festivalen (Norway)

• Primavera Sound (Spain)

• Pukkelpop (Belgium)

• Rock en Seine (France)

• Rock Werchter (Belgium)

• Slottsfjell (Norway)

• Sziget (Hungary)

• Way Out West (Sweden)

Promoter Of The Year

• FKP Scorpio (Germany)

• Friendly Fire (The Netherlands)

• Live Nation (Belgium)

• Metropolis (United Kingdom)

• ID&T (Belgium)

The Green Operations Award

• Boom (Portugal)

• Cabaret Vert (France)

• Cambridge Folk Festival (United Kingdom)

• Fusion (Germany)

• Ilosaarirock (Finland)

• Isle Of Wight (United Kingdom)

• Maifeld Derby (Germany)

• Melt! (Germany)

• Mysteryland (The Netherlands)

• Northside (Denmark)

• Øya Festival (Norway)

• Rock Am Ring (Germany)

• Roskilde (Denmark)

• Shambala (United Kingdom)

• We Love Green (France)

• Welcome to the Future (The Netherlands)

The following categories do not have shortlists. The winners will be announced at the gala ceremony in Groningen on 14th January.

YES Group H&S Innovation Award In association with the YES Group and ICM&SS

Award For Excellence And Passion

Lifetime Achievement Award in association with Yourope

European Festival Awards - and the winners are .....

The winners of the 2013 Festival Awards Europe have been announced at a sell out show at EuroSonic in the Netherlands in a show that featured live shows from Ireland's Kodaline, Milky Chance from Germany and Prata Vetra from Latvia - all hosted by that charming man, Ben Challis and sponsored by Eventbrite, IVS and lighting and staging bods Company NA - and most importantly voted for by 625,000 European festival fans. And without further ado the winners are:

Arctic Monkeys
headliner of the year

The Health and Safety Innovation Award (Jury Award) - Paleo Festival (Switzerland)
Best New Festival - B.my.Lake (Hungary)
Festival Anthem of the Year - Daft Punk - Get Lucky!  
Best Indoor Festival  - Metal Hammer Paradise (Germany)
The Green Operations Award (Jury award) - Way Out West (Sweden)
Best European Festival Line-Up  - Berlin Festival (Germany)
Newcomer of the Year - Imagine Dragons
Artist’s Favourite European Festival (Jury Award) - Lowlands (Netherlands)
Headliner of the Year - The Arctic Monkeys
Promoter Of The Year (Jury Award)  - FKP Scorpio (Germany)
Best Small Festival - FUSION Festival (Romania)
Best Medium-Sized Festival - Melt! Festival (Germany)
Best Major Festival - EXIT Festival (Serbia)
Lifetime Achievement Award  - Marek Lieberberg

Last night also saw the presentation of the European Border Breakers Awards at Eurosonic at a show hosted by Jools Holland. The finalists were GuGabriel, Lukas Graham, Woodkid, Zedd, Asgeir, Jacco Gardner, Envy, Icona Pop and Disclosure but the Public Choice Award went to Irish rock boys Kodaline.

European Festival Awards - the winners!

With outstanding live performances from Jake Bugg, C2C and Bernhoft, the 2013 European Festival Awards, held at the De Oosterpoort at the EuroSonic conference and festival in Groningen in the Netherlands, were a sell out success last night (January 9th). And, as host Ben Challis said just thirteen times to events, organisers and artistes from across Europe as the Awards were handed out, the winners are:

BEST NEW FESTIVAL  WINNER: Electro Magnetic (Germany)

BEST INDOOR FESTIVAL  WINNER: Sensation (Netherlands)

FESTIVAL ANTHEM  WINNER: Lykke Ly  I Follow Rivers

GREEN OPERATIONS AWARD WINNER: We Love Green (France)

BEST EUROPEAN FESTIVAL LINE-UP  WINNER: Rock am Ring / Rock im Park (Germany)

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR  WINNER: Of Monsters and Men 


ARTISTS’ FAVOURITE FESTIVAL  WINNER: Roskilde (Denmark)

HEADLINER OF THE YEAR WINNER: Foo Fighters

PROMOTER OF THE YEA   WINNER: Pukkelpop (Belgium)

BEST SMALL FESTIVAL   WINNER: Tauron New Music Festival (Poland)

BEST MEDIUM-SIZED FESTIVAL   WINNER: Heineken Balaton Sound (Hungary)

BEST MAJOR FESTIVAL  WINNER: Tomorrowland (Belgium)

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD   WINNER: Herman Schueremans (Live Nation Belgium)

The Awards were organised by Festival Awards Limited, Yourope and EuroSonic Noorderslag and sponsored by Planet Festival, Intelligent Venue Solutions and ID&C.

The European Border Breakers Awards were also handed out at the preceding show in the Grote Zaal hosted by Jools Holland, and the international winners are

• Nabiha (Denmark)
• Ewert and The Two Dragons (Estonia)
• French Films (Finland)
• C2C (France)  winners of the overall Public Choice Award
• Emeli Sandé (Great Britain)
• Of Monsters and Men (Iceland)
• Dope D.O.D. (Netherlands)
• Amor Electro (Portugal)
• Juan Zelada (Spain)
• Niki and the Dove (Sweden)

 More on the EBBAs on the Eurosonic-noorderslag website

European Festival Award winners announced

The best European festivals, artists and promoters of 2011 were revealed last night at a sold out ceremony, featuring performances from James Vincent McMorrow, Selah Sue and Dog is Dead. Taking place at Groningen’s De Oosterport in The Netherlands as part of the EuroSonic event, the third edition attracted over 350,000 public votes and had more than 200 festivals taking part from 32 different countries. The final winners, decided by a combination of public vote and industry juries, are:

Best Major European Festival – Sziget Festival (Hungary)
Best Medium-Sized European Festival – Off Festival (Poland)
Best Small European Festival – Haldern Pop (Germany)
Best New European Festival – Extrema Outdoor (Belgium)
Best Indoor Festival – I Love Techno (Belgium)
Best European Festival Line-Up – Rock Werchter (Belgium)
YOUROPE Green ‘N’ Clean Festival Of The Year – Melt! (Germany)
Artist’s Favourite European Festival – Southside / Hurricane (Germany)
Best Newcomer association with Eurosonic Noorderslag – James Blake
Best Headliner – Coldplay
Festival Anthem of the Year - Coldplay ‘Viva La Vida’
Virtual Festivals Europe presents Promoter Of The Year – FKP Scorpio (Germany)
YOUROPE Lifetime Achievement Award – Michael Eavis, Glastonbury (UK)

Fruzsina Szep from Sziget festival made an impromptu offer to all of the guests at the Awards after receiving the Best Major Festival award , inviting everyone to join her in a drink of Palinka: “We were very much hoping to win this award and it really means a lot to us because 2012 will be the 20th edition of our festival.”

On receiving his lifetime achievement award Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis said: “42 years ago I started something on my farm towards the end of the flower power era in the 60’s and we had less than a thousand people and now we have 150,000 people registered to buy a ticket for 2013. Thank you very much to everyone and thanks to all the people who have been involved in our show and thanks to all the people who buy tickets every year. I hope there are a few more years to go yet, another 10 years maybe.” James Drury, MD of Festival Awards Ltd, which organises the Awards said: “The further growth of the European festival awards and another record-breaking event highlights just how important festivals are to people across the continent. It’s testament to the hard work and passion of everyone involved with festivals that they continue to be so popular. With Glastonbury being the inspiration for so many festivals, I was especially delighted to welcome Michael Eavis to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been seminal in the success of the festival scene in the world.” Christof Huber, General Secretary YOUROPE added “Michael Eavis is an icon in the European festival scene and in my view, Glastonbury is the mother of all European festivals. He is just the right person to get the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Festival Awards Europe.