First Øya reviews in

Last week’s Øya festival was a huge success, breaking all past records and delivering five days of pure fun, great music and even decent weather! The international media attendance was also the greatest ever and the first tangible results of this have begun to tick in. Pitchforkmedia and Drowned in Sound are among the first to review the successful Oslo festival.

The Øya Festival

Last week’s Øya Festival went down as the most successful to date with flawless organisation, a great vibe and close to 65 000 attendees. Despite (hardly unexpected) cancellations by two headliners, Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen, turnout was massive from Tuesday’s club night to Saturday’s closing sets.

The international contingent to the Øya festival also reached record heights with more than 140 music industry reps and journalists from abroad. The first reviews and blog entries covering the vibrant Oslo festival have now begun to tick in, among them Pitchforkmedia’s Stephen M. Deusner who posted thorough and well-written day-by-day reports on the influential US site. Among the Norwegian bands that caught Deusner’s attention were Superfamily, Hanne Hukkelberg and Rockettothesky.

Read Pitchfork’s Tuesday review here, Wednesday’s here, Thursday’s here, Friday’s here and Saturday’s here.

UK’s Drowned In Sound sent a team to Øya who blogged during their Oslo stay.
Read the duo’s reports here: report one , report two and third and final blog entry .

One of Germany’s major dailies, Die Zeit also gave the Oslo festival thorough coverage with their journalist Matias Boem posting daily blog entries. Read it (in German) here.

Øya is generally considered one of the world’s ‘greenest’ festivals and added further proof to the notion with an extensive recycling programme, focus on low carbon emissions and a steady supply of 100% organic food. A record 24 tons of ecological produce was consumed by artists, staff and audience during the environmentally friendly festival.

More reviews and articles are expected to be published shortly and will be featured on this site.

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