SWEDEN ROCK FESTIVAL Limiting Number Of Tickets Sold For Next Year's Event

This year's Sweden Rock Festival set a new attendance record with 35,200 visitors. Next year, however, only 33,000 attendees will be admitted to the festival area.

Sweden Rock Festival 2009 was a great success, with the festival organizers receiving loads of accolades from audience, artists and media alike. For instance, U.K.'s Classic Rock magazine called Sweden Rock Festival the world's greatest outdoor festival, and Germany's Rock It! claimed that Sweden Rock offers the greatest festival experience in Europe by far. Still, following their own evaluation, the festival organizers have reached the conclusion that it is necessary to restrict the number of tickets made available for purchase in order to ensure that the visitors will have the optimal festival experience.

"Sweden Rock Festival never intended to be the biggest; we intend to be the greatest," explains the festival's founder, Ingolf Persson.

Last year's Sweden Rock Festival was attended by 33,200 rock and metal fans.

Next year's Sweden Rock Festival will take place June 9-12, 2010 in Sölvesborg, Blekinge. The first tickets will be made available on October 1.

Martin Forssman, the press manager for the Sweden Rock Festival, last month dismissed as "wrong" a Swedish newspaper report that suggested the event organizers wanted to penalize several bands — including German power metallers RAGE and Swedish stoner rockers WITCHCRAFT — for playing too loudly.

Sweden's largest daily newspaper Aftonbladet reported that Sweden Rock was being fined 250,000 SEK (around $35,000) by Swedish authorities for noise ordinance violations. According to the report, Sweden Rock was trying to avoid paying the fine and was blaming five of the acts that played the festival — RAGE, OUTLAWS, WITCHCRAFT, HYSTERICA and TRACE NINE — for violating noise laws during their performances at the event. However, according to Forssman, the Aftonbladet reporter "misunderstood a few things and drew his own conclusions."

Forssman told BLABBERMOUTH.NET in a statement, "First of all, the fine has not gone through yet, and it is far from certain that it will. Secondly, not all the mentioned bands were using their own sound technicians (all bands and technicians were however informed of the rules and there was measuring equipment at all the mixing towers). Naturally, whatever happens, we will not hold bands who did not bring their own sound techs responsible for those violations.

"Swedish authorities allow a 97 dB average with 110 dB peaks on events that are open to children under 13 — such as the Sweden Rock Festival. Unfortunately, measuring sound levels is not as exact as measuring speed or temperature since they are greatly affected by wind, air humidity etc. We hope this will be taken into consideration when the final decision regarding the fines is made."