At last night’s European Festival Awards ceremony in Groningen, Roadburn collected the award for Best Small Festival. The prestigious awards event is held at the beginning of Eurosonic Noorderslag conference and showcase festival and recognises contributions to the festival world across 16 categories. Best Small Festival recognises events with a capacity below 10,000; Roadburn was nominated alongside the likes of Liverpool Sound City (UK), Unsound Festival (PL), and Arsenal Fest (RS).
Upon collecting the award, Roadburn’s Artistic Director, Walter Hoeijmakers spoke of the origins of Roadburn and its roots in the underground, as well as challenges the industry has faced over the last three years.
Walter comments: “We’re incredibly proud of winning this award, it validates the hard work that we put into Roadburn. But it is also a token of recognition for the bands in the underground that we have championed – they’ve overcome so many challenges in the last few years. We’re so proud that we’re still able to offer them a platform to excel and showcase their artistry.”
Roadburn has been championing underground music since 1999. As the festival has grown in size, it has also grown in scope – embracing artists from a broad spectrum of genres and disciplines. Metal, doom, avant-garde, electronics, psychedelic music and more are all represented across Roadburn line ups.
Roadburn’s 2023 line up includes a diverse array of artists including Deafheaven, Boy Harsher, Wolves In The Throne Room, David Eugene Edwards and Këkht Aräkh. The festival will also host two Artists In Residence who will each perform three times across the days of the festival. Four collaborative projects have been commissioned to compose and perform original work specifically for Roadburn – including a joint venture between Duma from Kenya and Deafkids from Brazil. Roadburn 2023 will take place between April 20-23. More information on the line up can be found here.