Electric Castle turns 10: ‘This is just the beginning’

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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