How does one describe Roskilde to someone who has never been before? Well it's huge, kind of it's own community and simply amazing to behold, especially the first time you go. For me that was the summer of 2007, perhaps the worst weather Roskilde has ever experienced as it rained non stop almost the entire time. Which normally would put someone like me off, but I enjoyed myself so much despite the weather I came back again and again. This summer being my 3rd time in a row and so far the weather has been beautiful! Normally you arrive at the Roskilde main train station and get to the East or West camping area anyway that you can. You can either walk, take a taxi, bike, hitch or even the special festival train, though the festival trains don't actually start running til Sunday afternoon. The festival really begins on a Thursday and ends late Sunday night. But most people come early ( like me) for the warm up days and arrive the previous Saturday night to wait in line to exchange their tickets for wristbands. Normally no one gets their writsbands until after midnight, so technically Sunday morning.
This summer they started to give out the wristbands earlier at the local Tivoli, sometime around noon on Saturday. Since all my trains from Austria to Denmark were late, I didn't get there as early as I had planned or wished to. Hence a lot of my friends who were a lot coser to Roskilde, Denmark than me got their wristbands, while I had to go to the actual festival grounds and wait in line to get mine. One of the worst aspects of the Roskilde Music festival, waiting in line for hours and hours. Though because of the early Wristband exchange my waiting in line actually took less than 30 minutes total, compared to my waiting for over 3 hours last year in th rain. When I got to the ticket booth I was even recognized by the ticket taker for posts I had apparently made on the official Roskilde site, which was pretty amazing since over 80,000 people come to Roskilde most years and I am but one person. But better than that I actually bumped into some Swedish guys I was hoping to meet up with again, as we partied a lot together in the past. In fact we met waiting in line to get our wristbands, just like we did the 1st time back in 2008. So this years festival had a little bit of kismet thrown since the odds of us both being in line again on the same day at the same, albeit at a different time than last year is pretty amazing if you ask me.
Once everyone has a wristband they are led to another temporary camping area where they wait until the fences of the main camping area are scheduled to be taken down around 8 or 9am Sunday morning. Though what usually happens is someone breaks down the fences around 3am Sunday and everyone rushes the camping areas to set up their respective tents. This year someone started a rumor that the
other camping area had torn down their fences already, which in turn made the side that started the rumor in the first place tear down theirs. This happened at 9pm this year, about 6 or 7 hours earlier than when it normally happens. Which actually gave me, my fellow camp mates and everyone who showed up at Roskilde Saturday night almost a whole extra day of camping and partying! As for the camping during Roskilde itself. There are two main camping areas, East and West. I have only camped in West as far as I know...I cannot recall where I was exactly in 2007 because of the weather and the fact that I was drunk most of the time. West is more relaxed and tends to have more non Danish campers, while East is more of a party area and full of Danish people. I prefer West because I like my friends and company to be varied, and there is less noise and less theft than in East. I have heard a lot of horror stories about tents being broken into at East or tents being slashed and even set on fire. Though that tends to happen the last day of Roskilde.
How does one describe Roskilde to someone who has never been before? Well it's huge, kind of it's own community and simply amazing to behold, especially the first time you go. For me that was the summer of 2007, perhaps the worst weather Roskilde has ever experienced as it rained non stop almost the entire time. Which normally would put someone like me off, but I enjoyed myself so much despite the weather I came back again and again. This summer being my 3rd time in a row and so far the weather has been beautiful! Normally you arrive at the Roskilde main train station and get to the East or West camping area anyway that you can. You can either walk, take a taxi, bike, hitch or even the special festival train, though the festival trains don't actually start running til Sunday afternoon. The festival really begins on a Thursday and ends late Sunday night. But most people come early ( like me) for the warm up days and arrive the previous Saturday night to wait in line to exchange their tickets for wristbands. Normally no one gets their writsbands until after midnight, so technically Sunday morning. 
This summer they started to give out the wristbands earlier at the local Tivoli, sometime around noon on Saturday. Since all my trains from Austria to Denmark were late, I didn't get there as early as I had planned or wished to. Hence a lot of my friends who were a lot coser to Roskilde, Denmark than me got their wristbands, while I had to go to the actual festival grounds and wait in line to get mine. One of the worst aspects of the Roskilde Music festival, waiting in line for hours and hours. Though because of the early Wristband exchange my waiting in line actually took less than 30 minutes total, compared to my waiting for over 3 hours last year in th rain. When I got to the ticket booth I was even recognized by the ticket taker for posts I had apparently made on the official Roskilde site, which was pretty amazing since over 80,000 people come to Roskilde most years and I am but one person. But better than that I actually bumped into some Swedish guys I was hoping to meet up with again, as we partied a lot together in the past. In fact we met waiting in line to get our wristbands, just like we did the 1st time back in 2008. So this years festival had a little bit of kismet thrown since the odds of us both being in line again on the same day at the same, albeit at a different time than last year is pretty amazing if you ask me.
Once everyone has a wristband they are led to another temporary camping area where they wait until the fences of the main camping area are scheduled to be taken down around 8 or 9am Sunday morning. Though what usually happens is someone breaks down the fences around 3am Sunday and everyone rushes the camping areas to set up their respective tents. This year someone started a rumor that the other camping area had torn down their fences already, which in turn made the side that started the rumor in the first place tear down theirs. This happened at 9pm this year, about 6 or 7 hours earlier than when it normally happens. Which actually gave me, my fellow camp mates and everyone who showed up at Roskilde Saturday night almost a whole extra day of camping and partying! As for the camping during Roskilde itself. There are two main camping areas, East and West. I have only camped in West as far as I know...I cannot recall where I was exactly in 2007 because of the weather and the fact that I was drunk most of the time. West is more relaxed and tends to have more non Danish campers, while East is more of a party area and full of Danish people. I prefer West because I like my friends and company to be varied, and there is less noise and less theft than in East. I have heard a lot of horror stories about tents being broken into at East or tents being slashed and even set on fire. Though that tends to happen the last day of Roskilde.
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