Roskilde Festival is non-profit and independent. But what does that mean? Find out here, see where the profits go, and learn how volunteers help create the festival.
Roskilde Festival is eight days of music, camping, art, food and community. Every year, around 130,000 participants, volunteers, artists and staff gather in Roskilde for one of Europe’s largest music festivals.
But the festival is also more than a major music event. Roskilde Festival is a charitable event created by community, volunteering and the wish to make a difference.
When you buy a ticket, become a volunteer or engage with the festival, you help support something that reaches far beyond the festival site.
When we say that Roskilde Festival is non-profit, it means that the profits do not go to owners or shareholders. They go to charitable causes.
Since 1972, we have donated DKK 476 million to projects and organisations that work especially for children and young people’s wellbeing, opportunities and hopes for the future.
That is an important part of why the festival exists. Roskilde Festival is not only here to bring people together for eight days. It is also here to create value afterwards, for people beyond those who were part of it on site.
Roskilde Festival is one of the few remaining independent and charitable major festivals in a market increasingly shaped by large global commercial players.
Our independence matters because it allows us to stand by our values and our way of making a festival: driven by passionate people and with a programme that puts curiosity, diversity and new voices on the bill.
It means we can make artistic choices that are not only about the most obvious option. We can make room for the new, the surprising and the things that move the festival forward.
Roskilde Festival is created by people who choose to be part of something together.
Every year, volunteers help build, run and deliver the festival. They work in stalls, help in the camping areas, work with access, information, clean-up and all the things that make the festival work.
Volunteering is also an important reason why the festival can pass on its profits. When many people contribute time, energy and community, it becomes possible to create a major festival with a greater purpose.
