European Festival Awards winners announced

Netherlands | 13 January 2010

The winners of the inaugural European Festival Awards have been unveiled at a ceremony at The Grand Theatre, Groningen in the Netherlands.

Revealed at the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival, Heineken Open’er Festival in Poland walked away with the Best Major Festival prize.

From there on in, Dour Festival sparked off a successful evening for Belgium events taking Best Medium Festival before Cactusfestival organisers walked away with the Best Small Festival gong.

Rock Werchter was honoured with Best Line-up and Artists’ Favourite Festival, while another Flemish event, Openfields Festival, beat off stiff competition from a slew of Sonisphere festivals to be named Best New European Festival.

Oya Festivalen in Norway was given the Clean ’N’ Green Festival gong with The Prodigy taking away Best Headline Artist, while White Lies were honoured with Best Newcomer Artist.

Coldplay captured Festival Anthem of the Year for ‘Viva la Vida’, while Herman Schueremans from Live Nation in Belgium was chosen as Promoter of the Year. Pinkpop organiser Jem Smeets was given the Lifetime Achievement Award on the night.

Speaking about the European Festival Awards Steve Jenner, Festival Awards Ltd. co-director, commented:“We are delighted to affirm that the inaugural European Festival Awards has been a great accomplishment for us in terms of the volume of interest and participation generated on a pan-European level by both the public and industry, which surpassed our expectations for year one.

“We look forward to building on this initial success and taking it to great heights in future with our fantastic partners Yourope and Eurosonic Noorderslag.”