Electric Castle organisers have hailed a “crazy but beautiful” 10th-anniversary edition.

The Romanian festival returned to the 15th-century Banffy Castle in Transylvania between 17 and 21 July, with more than 200 artists.

Massive Attack, Bring Me the Horizon, Chase & Status, Sean Paul, Paolo Nutini and Khruangbin helped to draw an average 50,000 daily attendees (with a peak of 68,000 on Saturday) – a 20% increase from last year’s edition and a new record for the festival.

While this year’s edition was a triumph by all accounts, Electric Castle’s Renate Rozenberg says it was also “one of the most difficult editions to handle”.

“It was crazy from all points of view,” she tells IQ. “It was full of challenges – and new challenges.”

“The global IT outage turned us upside down”

One of those novelties was the global IT outage on Friday that grounded flights and caused a raft of artists to miss their scheduled sets at the festival.

Fourteen acts, including Sleaford Mods, Hospitality Night and Sasha, were absent from Electric Castle due to the faulty security update that caused 8.5 million Microsoft Windows computers to crash.

“It turned us upside down,” Rozenberg admits. “Everyone tried really hard to solve an unsolvable situation… you couldn’t book a new flight or even open airlines’ websites but the artists were so patient and some even waited in the airport for 12 hours or so. It was amazing how hard they tried to attend the festival.”

Mercurial weather was also a challenge for the festival, with high temperatures, storms and rain on rotation during the first few days.

But, as Rozenberg points out, it’s a hurdle that organisers have been clearing since the very first edition of Electric Castle, which was hit with record rainfall for Romania.

“We should help artists who are really good to ‘get there’… that’s what Electric Castle is about”

“We have a tradition with rain,” laughs Rozenberg. “We are the most prepared festival in Romania for that kind of weather – we know how to handle things – and what I love is that [attendees] have also learned how to handle it. We’ve changed the mentality of what rain means at a festival… it can be fun!”

Alongside the rain, the festival has become renowned for its “full-time experience” with five of the 10 stages operating a non-stop schedule.

The festival also offers a wide range of activities including sports, cinema and standup shows at the newly opened comedy club.

“Music and dancing are important but you can’t do it 24 hours a day,” says Rozenberg. “It’s a challenge to programme all day and all night but fortunately our community is curious and they have a huge appetite to discover what we suggest.”

This attitude among attendees allows the festival to be more adventurous with its artist bookings, and dedicate space on the programme to emerging and domestic talent.

“We always wanted to be a festival open for people from all walks of life”

“For example, we booked IDLES five or six years ago when they weren’t yet a name, and we really loved them so we put them on one of our most important stages and a month ago they played Glastonbury,” says Rozenberg.

“We should help artists who are really good to ‘get there’. We are doing that for the international market but also for the Romanian market. That is what Electric Castle is about.”

Another mission for the festival’s organisers is to maintain the affordability of the festival.

“We always wanted to be a festival open for people from all walks of life,” explains Rozenberg. “We want to be accessible. If you want to be the king of the castle, there’s fine dining and luxury camping. If you want to attend the festival with a low budget, there’s a supermarket on site and low rates for camping. We’re a festival that wants to focus on comfort for our attendees.”

“We strive to make the next edition better than the previous one”

Rozenberg says it’s thanks to “a lot” of partners and sponsors that costs are kept down for the fans and the festival.

“They invest a lot in Electric Castle, not just financially, but in terms of the experience,” she adds. “We are lucky that they bring games and entertainment too.”

With 10 successful editions under Electric Castle’s belt, organisers are only more ambitious to grow the festival.

“Ten years is just the beginning,” says Rozenberg. “We strive to make the next edition better than the previous one. A festival mirrors the people who are creating it. We are curious people and we don’t settle. And if we want more, people will get more.”

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Colours of Ostrava programmer Filip Košťálek has spoken to IQ about the 21st edition of the Czech festival.

This year’s instalment returned to Ostrava, the country’s third-largest city, between 17–20 July, with Sam Smith, James Blake, Tom Morello, Lenny Kravitz, Sean Paul and Khruangbin among the top-billing acts.

Here, Košťálek tells IQ how the festival is bridging a generational gap, what the global IT outage meant for them and why it wasn’t the “easiest” year for the event…

IQ: How many tickets did you sell for this year’s edition?
FK: We have not been publishing attendance figures for several years. Since there is no single metric for counting attendance, we consider the quality of artistic performances and visitor satisfaction to be more important. However, we are still one of the largest international festivals in Central Europe.

What are you most proud of with this year’s edition?
I’m very proud of our audience and the overall atmosphere of the festival. This edition showed us once again that our festival is about discovering new original music from all over the world, regardless of genre. Visitors of all generations filled our eight music and 13 discussion stages to the brim, no matter how well-known the performer. Our visitors showed warmth and love to the world’s biggest stars and emerging artists across all four days.

“The outage of the global air traffic clearance system in the middle of the festival was a shocking moment”

What were the main challenges of this year’s event?
The outage of the global air traffic clearance system that hit our performers at European airports right in the middle of the festival was a shocking moment. Although we had made all sorts of plans for replacements and rescheduling, in the end, we were lucky and it only meant rescheduling one show. We are delighted that we were able to deliver all the shows.

How much have costs risen since last year and what measures have you taken to ensure the festival remains profitable?
Overall costs have risen by 20-25% year-on-year, so it is clear that we have had to continuously respond to these significant changes. As we strive to keep the festival as accessible as possible, working with ticket prices is quite sensitive for us – we’ve addressed this by adding new categories that expand the ticket offer while opening up the opportunity for new audiences to attend. At the same time, our commercial partners are helping us a lot, for which we are very grateful!

Nevertheless, the line between the success and failure of festivals is getting very thin. I believe that the current economic setup of the industry dramatically increases extreme risks for promoters compared to the potential profits. We never compromise on quality, but we are forced to think more and more about each item in our budgets.

“Overall costs have risen by 20-25% year-on-year, so it is clear that we have had to continuously respond to these significant changes”

Czechia is one of the only European countries that hasn’t adopted the Euro (though it seems there are plans to) – how does the currency fare when it comes to artist fees?
Of course, this means more work for us in the economic department. We have to monitor exchange rates and buy currency as necessary. But I think we are managing and it doesn’t limit us.

There have been many reports of festivals struggling to book headliners. What was your experience with securing the 2024 lineup?
I think we did very well this year thanks to the support of our agents and the good name of our festival with 23 years of history. It was definitely not the easiest year, but to complain would be blasphemy.

When Sam Smith, a non-binary artist, was announced to play at the festival, there were some uncouth remarks from people on social media. Why do you think that was? Do Czech audiences embrace LGBTIQ+ artists?
It is about the fact that our festival is one of the biggest cultural events in the Czech Republic. This means that we have a truly society-wide reach and impact, reaching the majority of the population, who are not necessarily festival-goers. However, I must say that the Czech Republic is generally a very open and tolerant country.

“We also introduced psychological First Aid for staff and visitors… we know that huge events can be challenging for a lot of people”

Was there anything new or improved at this year’s festival?
No edition is the same, we strive to improve across all departments. To innovate every year. This year, we added two stages: the NYC stage with an eclectic lineup full of music, stand-up comedy, theatre and discussions in a new glamour tent, and the storytelling tent for sharing stories about Indigenous culture and connection with the soul and nature.

We also introduced psychological First Aid for staff and visitors. We know that huge events can be challenging for a lot of people. This service has been warmly received and I am pleased that, in the end, the number of people who had to use this service was less than we had anticipated. This means that Colours of Ostrava is a safe, comfortable and inclusive festival.

Pavla Slivova (head of booking & artist liaisons) said at IFF 2022 that there was a generation gap at the festival and the team needed to refocus its attention on what Gen Z finds attractive. Have you managed to do that?
I think it’s on the right track. This transformation is definitely not a task that can be accomplished in one year but I feel that not only Gen Z, but society in general, is starting to realize again how important it is to meet and have long, intense experiences.

We’re going to work on this step by step, and this year has shown us the right way. I think it’s mainly about communication: the way we receive information is evolving dynamically, and we try to adapt to that so that young audiences understand us, so that they realise the importance of culture, simply so that we speak the same language. At the same time, we are placing even more emphasis on the safety and comfort of visitors. We have introduced psychological first aid and with the help of our partners, expanded the range of relaxation rest areas.

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Romania’s Electric Castle, Latvia’s Positivus and Austria’s Poolbar are among the major festivals impacted by one of the worst IT outages in history, this weekend.

Last Friday, a faulty security update by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike caused 8.5 million Microsoft Windows computers to crash around the world, with businesses, banks, hospitals and airlines among the worst-hit.

Thousands of flights were cancelled due to the glitch, causing some artists to miss their scheduled sets at the weekend’s festivals.

Electric Castle’s 10th edition was hit with 14 cancellations by artists including Sleaford Mods, Hospitality Night, Sasha, Dov’è Liana, Jayda G, Ron Trent, Zack Fox, Hoax, PVC, Anais, INJA, Unglued, Voltage and Kings of the Rollers.

“It was crazy… the most difficult edition to handle,” EC’s Renate Rozenberg tells IQ. “We have to admit that what happened on Friday turned us upside down but we are so grateful because, once again, we were shown that we really are a community – not only with our team or the festivalgoers but with the artists and their teams.”

“Everybody tried really hard to solve an unsolvable situation”

“Everybody tried really hard to solve an unsolvable situation but you couldn’t book a new flight or even open airlines’ websites,” she continues. “But the artists were so patient and some even waited in the airport for 12 hours or so. It was amazing how hard they tried to attend the festival.”

A handful of artists even arrived minutes before their sets, according to Rozenberg.

“Nina Kravitz, for example, was supposed to perform on Friday at 11 pm but at 6 pm she was still stuck in an airport. We didn’t know if she would make it but she did at the last minute, and she was there on stage and performing and everything was great.”

While Electric Castle kept all its headliners in place, Latvia’s Positivus wasn’t so lucky. Two of the three headliners, Offset and Nothing But Thieves, were forced to cancel their performances at the festival due to the outage.

“In its sixteen years of existence, the Positivus Festival had never faced such immense challenges as it did yesterday”

“In its sixteen years of existence, the Positivus Festival had never faced such immense challenges as it did yesterday,” organisers wrote on Saturday (20 July).

“Until late [on Friday] night, we were searching for a charter flight to bring Offset from London to Riga,” they explained. “As soon as it became clear that it would not be possible for him to fly on Friday with a special flight, we searched until late into the night for possibilities to fly on Saturday. The technical personnel of the artists were already in the festival area yesterday and ready for the concert. However, the artist himself was so worried about his ability to get back to America that they decided to cancel the show.”

Nothing But Thieves, on the other hand, were unable to transport their large amount of luggage due to issues at the airport and the band’s headlining spot was filled by Benjamin Clementine. All other artists arrived at the festival in Riga.

Friday ticket holders were invited to attend the festival on Saturday.

Elsewhere in Europe, Austria’s Poolbar festival was forced to reschedule Bombay Bicycle Club’s show from Friday to Sunday (21 July), as the band’s flights were affected by the glitch.

Combination tickets to the festival were made valid for Friday and Sunday. Ticket holders who were unable to attend on Sunday could return their tickets to booking offices.

The festival was taking place between 4 July to 11 August in the city of Feldkirch in the Austrian province of Vorarlberg with between 20,000 and 25,000 people.

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