European Festival Awards shortlists revealed

Four judge-compiled categories announced, vote again now!

Netherlands | 16 December 2009

The shortlists for the inaugural European Festival Awards have been announced, including four new judge-compiled categories, as festival-goers are given a second chance to pick their favourites.

Over 25,000 votes have already been cast in the Best Major, Best Medium, Best Small and Best New Festival longlists, which have now been reduced to ten festivals per category and five in Best New Festival.

The finalists are as follows:

Best Major Festival
Exit Festival (Serbia)
Glastonbury Festival (UK)
Heineken Open'er Festival (Poland)
Les Vieilles Charrues (France)
Nature One (Germany)
Pinkpop (Netherlands)
Pukkelpop (Belgium)
Rock Werchter (Belgium)
Roskilde Festival (Denmark)
Sziget (Hungary)

Best Medium-Sized Festival
Bilbao BBK Live (Spain)
Coke Live Music Festival (Poland)
Couleur Cafe Festival (Belgium)
Dour Festival (Belgium)
Melt! Festival (Germany)
Paleo Festival Nyon (Switzerland
Pinkpop Classic (Netherlands)
Spirit of Burgas (Bulgaria)
Taubertal-Festival (Germany)
T-Mobile INmusic Festival (Croatia)

Best Small Festival
Avo Session Basel (Switzerland)
Astropolis (France)
Be2gether (Lithuania)
Cactusfestival (Belgium)
Haldern Pop Festival (Germany)
Hartera Festival (Croatia)
Life Festival (Republic Of Ireland)
Mach1 Festival (Germany)
Openfields Festival (Belgium)
Zeverrock (Belgium)

Best New Festival
Openfields Festival (Belgium)
ParkLive (Bulgaria)
Sonisphere (Netherlands)
Sonisphere (Spain)
Sonisphere (UK)

Organisers have also unveiled four new artist-related categories for festival-goers to deliberate over including Best Line-Up, Best Newcomer, Best Headline Artist and Anthem Of The Summer.

The bands and acts nominated in each award have been selected by an esteemed panel of judges.

The nominees are as follows:

Best Line-Up
Electric Picnic
Glastonbury
Gurtenfestival
Lowlands
Melt
OpenAir St.Gallen
Primavera Sound
Pukkelpop
Rock Werchter
T in the Park

Best Newcomer
Black Lips
Bon Iver
Buraka Som Sistema
Ebony Bones
Fever Ray
Gossip
King Blues
Paloma Faith
Phoenix
White Lies

Best Headline Artist
Blur
Bloc Party
Bruce Springsteen
Faith No More
Fatboy Slim
Neil Young
Nine Inch Nails
Metallica
The Prodigy
Radiohead

Anthem of the Year
Coldplay – ‘Viva La Vida’
Kings of Leon – ‘Use Somebody’
Lily Allen – ‘Fuck You’
Mando Diao – ‘Dance With Somebody’
White Lies – ‘Farewell To The Fairground’

Festival-fans now have two weeks to decide their favourite festivals, bands and songs before voting closes on Wednesday 30 December.

Click here to start voting.

The European Festival Awards winners will be revealed at the gala ceremony, which takes place on Wednesday 13 January at The Grand Theatre, EuroSonic Noorderslag 2010, Groningen, Netherlands.

Festival-goers can vote in as many categories as they want, depending how many they've been to and which ones are relevant to them.

And by entering, they can enter our competition to win two tickets to every award winning festival - that could total more than nine!