Stockholm’s big music festival Lollapalooza will not take place next year.
– We are taking a break now during 2024. We want to use that time to evaluate and make improvements in all areas, says Alexander Kihlström, communications manager at Lollapalooza Stockholm.
Except during the pandemic years, the music festival Lollapalooza has taken place in Stockholm every year since 2019. Artists such as Travis Scott, Foo Fighters and Post Malone have attracted large audiences to Gärdet on a long weekend every summer.
But there will be no festival in 2024. Times are bad, with high interest rates and high inflation. But that’s not why Lollapalooza is taking a break, according to Live Nation.
– No, I wouldn’t say that. We’ve had three fantastic festivals so far and it’s entirely possible to do events in Stockholm and around Sweden, which we can see not least from our friends Sweden Rock and Way Out West, who are going like the train again this year, says Alexander Kihlström.
Come back
He believes that Lollapalooza can come back to Stockholm.
– Yes, I cannot say more details about when the festival will return. There is a desire and an interest in festivals that have very big international acts.
In the past, giant festivals such as Hultsfred, Bråvalla in Norrköping and Peace and Love in Borlänge attracted large audiences. But since the three disappeared from the map a little over ten years ago, it has been more difficult for organizers to attract spectators to real broad festivals.
Niche festivals
Instead, more niche music festivals such as Way Out West in Gothenburg and Sweden Rock in Sölvesborg have flourished. But Alexander Kihlström does not think that the narrower festivals have it easier than the big, broad ones.
– For a festival like Lollapalooza, both visitors and organizers have more artists to choose from. But with that said, it has to work with artists touring and the like. While more pure festivals have to stay within their genre. So it’s both, I’d say.
On Monday, it was also announced that the music festival Big Slap in Malmö is closed. Founder Ali Eftekhari said in an interview with South Sweden that “a maximum limit” had been reached for how the festival could be developed further. But he also added that the organizers do not believe “that 2024 is a good year for such big festivals in neither Sweden nor the world”.