European Festival Awards crowns 2015 winners

The European Festival Awards returned for the seventh time last night on the eve of Eurosonic Noorderslag in Groningen.

A total of sixteen awards were presented, with two special awards – the excellence and passion award and lifetime achievement award – given respectively to festival safety pioneer Dr Chris Kemp and Trans Musicales founders Jean-Louis Brossard and Beatrice Mace.

Music came courtesy of Kovacs (Netherlands), White (UK), Festival Youth (Latvia) and the Natural Peace & Love Orchestra, a live music industry supergroup comprising Christof Huber of Yourope, Fruzsina Szep of Lollapalooza Berlin, Ivan Milivojev of Exit Festival, Philippe Cornu of Gruten Festival, host Ben Challis, Steve Jenner of Playpass, Holger Jan Schmidt of Go Group and our very own Gordon Masson.

A full list of winners is below.

Best major festival (in association with Charge Candy)
Untold Festival, Romania

Best medium-sized festival (in association with Eventbrite)
Telekom Volt Festival, Hungary

Best small festival
Happiness Festival, Germany

Best new festival
Lollapalooza Berlin, Germany

Best indoor festival
Les Transardentes, Belgium

Festival anthem of the year
‘Lean On’ by Major Lazer

Newcomer of the year (in association with Eurosonic Noorderslag)
Hozier, Ireland

Best headliner
The Prodigy, UK

Best lineup (in association with IFF)
Sziget, Hungary

Artists’ favourite festival
Rock Werchter, Belgium

Promoter of the year (in association with Bucks New University)
Horstmann Unternehmensgruppe, Germany

Agent of the year
Emma Banks, CAA, UK

Green operations award (in association with Go Group and Yourope)
Tollwood Festival, Germany

Yes Group H&S innovation award
Das Fest, Germany

Excellence and passion award
Chris Kemp, UK

Lifetime achievement award (in association with PlayPass/PayPal)
Jean-Louis Brossard and Beatrice Mace, France