How to have an Incendiary Summer in 2005

Haldern Festival. Germany. 5/6 August. We’re going and so should you!

Ok, it’s festival time. We were thinking about doing a feature on the top ten festivals to go to, but to be honest, we couldn’t think of ten we’d like to recommend to you. Yes, there’s Glastonbury, Werchter, Roskilde, Lowlands etc etc ad infinitum, but do we really need to recommend them to you? We’d suggest you check out Lowlands and the Dour festival, but not many others really spring to mind. Personally, I’m not a big Glastonbury lover, for the same reason as I’m no longer a Werchter lover, and that reason is that they’re just too damn big. I mean how long does Werchter go on for now? 4 days? Jesus. There’s just no need for it.

Glastonbury, Werchter, Lowlands and all the other big money grabbing festivals all sound like they have fantastic line ups, but how many of those bands will you actually be able to see over the course of the festival? Half a dozen? That’s not what I’m interested in. They say you can go to Glastonbury, not see a single band and have the best weekend of your life, but I’m not one of these people who’s interested in spending a lot of money to go to a festival, strip off, drink a bottle of liquid acid and start hanging out with a bunch of people playing digeridoos and bongos. I can do that for free elsewhere. No, when I go to a festival I want to see some bands and I don’t want to miss anything. Therefore, Glastonbury, Roskilde and especially Werchter are simply out of the question.

What I’m looking for in a festival is something well laid out, with a good beer tent, decent food, large stage, good atmosphere and a decent line up. It doesn’t have to be the biggest and the most impressive line up ever created (or the most expensive), it just has to offer a decent line up, with a nice variety of artists. Also, you’ve got to be able to see every single band that’s playing, if you want to. But that’s just wishful thinking isn’t it.

Isn’t it?

No. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce you to the Haldern Pop Festival. Incendiary has visited the festival for the past couple of years and I can honestly say that it is our favourite festival. Ever. We love it.

The line up is always fabulous. The atmosphere is fantastic. The weather’s normally hot too. It’s not big, but it’s very cleverly put together and we simply can’t recommend it enough. We’re going to this year’s festival again and we want you all to come with us.

This year’s Haldern Pop Festival takes place on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th. That’s 2 days! Perfect! There’ll also be a few bands playing on the Thursday night as a kind of welcoming/warm up to the main festival, which is a nice bonus. Inside the main festival area there’s only 1 stage. You know what that means? You’re able to see every single band on the line up. Hoorah! Also, when the headliners have finished and everybody goes off to sleep/party elsewhere, they have the marvelous mirror tent that’s open late and will have a few extra bands playing on into the early hours, and isn’t it a corker of a room? Huzzah!