The festival started in 1974 as a one-day event with performances from Banzai and Kandahar, but over the years it has evolved to become Belgium's largest music festival. Originally it was a double-festival, called "Torhout-Werchter", with two festival areas at different sites in Belgium: one in Werchter and one in Torhout. In 1999, the festival dropped the Torhout site and since then has taken place only in Werchter. Since 2003 Werchter has been a 4-day festival, as it was sold by owner Herman Schueremans to American organizers Live Nation. Schueremans however remains the main organiser of the event. The festival is organised every first weekend of the summer vacation in Belgium (last weekend of June or the first of July). Roskilde festival and the Arras Main Square Festival are almost always organised in the same weekend, so they can 'share' bands. Sometimes, the Glastonbury Festival is organised at the same weekend, but most years it's organised a weekend earlier.
In recent years, there has been controversy about rising ticket prices. Because of this, Schueremans was heckled during an appearance on HUMO's Pop Poll, a Belgian alternative award show. At 169€ for four days (17€ extra to include camping) in 2008 it is considered a relatively inexpensive music festival.
The camping sites officially open at 8am on the first day of the festival, but because of guests arriving early and camping on the street, the organizers have traditionally been forced to open the camping sites early - sometimes more than 24 hours. The campsites are located along the three main entrance roads into Werchter (from Haacht, Aarschot and Leuven), most of them within 1 kilometer of the festival site but some located as far as 3 kilometers away. In 2011, for the first time, XL camping tickets are available, allowing festival goers to arrive and camp from 4pm on the Wednesday before the festival.
Until the 1990s the festival attracted mostly Flemish people, but in recent years it has become more and more international with an especially large influx of Dutch, French, Walloon, British and a notable Australian and South African contingent. Belgian alternatives remain in the Pukkelpop and Dour festivals.
The festival started off as a one-day event, became a two-day festival in 1996, a 3-day festival in 2000, and has been a 4-day festival since 2003.
Before 1995, when the festival was still a double-festival, it had one stage with 8 or 9 bands performing twice, once in Torhout and once in Werchter. Since 1995 the Main stage was accompanied by a second stage. This stage was an open air stage until 1999 when it was made a tent named 'Pyramid Marquee', with a capacity of 6,000 people. The performers in Pyramid Marquee are usually lesser-known or aimed at a specific audience. Sometimes groups that do well in Pyramid Marquee are expected to have a hard time taking the step to the Main stage, especially when they are seen as an act needing intimate, smaller venues. Sigur Rós is the most famous example of this, when they were programmed on Main Stage in 2008 after their 2006 performance in Pyramid Marquee, but they managed the transition and were hailed as one the best performances of the festival.
The bands presented at Rock Werchter are traditionally a balanced mix of large well known artists, popular crowd-pleasing acts and local Belgian coming acts. Belgian band dEUS in 2008 was the first local band to close the Main Stage on the last day since several years. The days usually start around noon, except for the first day, which starts around 4pm. Most performances last from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. The days end around 1am, but when the last act is a dance act they sometimes last until 3am or later. At the end of the last day there is a big fireworks show.
Year | Dates | Guests per day (avg) | Main artists | Notes | |
1977 | 5,000 | Philip Catherine, Jan Akkerman, Kayak (band) | |||
1978 | 6,000 | ||||
1979 | 12,000 | [[Raymond van het Groenewoud, Talking Heads, Dire Straits & Rory Gallagher | |||
1980 | 18,000 | Kevin Ayers, Fischer-Z, The Specials & The Kinks | |||
1981 | 23,500 | ||||
1982 | 37,500 | U2, Steve Miller Band, Talking Heads & Jackson Browne | |||
1983 | 36,000 | Eurythmics, Simple Minds, U2, Peter Gabriel & Van Morrison | |||
1984 | 55,000 | Schueremans and De Meyer created StageCo Staging Company. All Audio and Video equipments were dismantled at Torhout and transported to Werchter to be build up for the Werchter leg of the festival. This had to be done in 10 hours. | |||
1985 | 63,000 | Ramones, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, U2 & Joe Cocker | |||
1986 | 60,000 | Simply Red, Talk Talk, UB40, Elvis Costello & the Attractions & Simple Minds | Ticket price was 850 Belgian Franks, which is 21 Euro nowadays. | ||
1987 | 60,000 | Iggy Pop, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Pretenders, Eurythmics & Peter Gabriel | |||
1988 | 60,000 | ||||
1989 | 50,000 | ||||
1990 | 60,000 | ||||
1991 | 50,500 | In Torhout the crowd spontaneously started throwing empty bottles onto the stage during Iggy Pop's concert, soon filling the skies with bottlework. The samen happened in Werchter the next day, ending with bottles hitting peoples' heads and resulting in injuries. This incident marked the beginning of the prohibition of visitors bringing their own drinks to the festival, a decision criticized and allegated to be for mere commercial purposes. | |||
1992 | 60,000 | The Smashing Pumpkins, Crowded House, Lou Reed, Red Hot Chili Peppers & Bryan Adams | Kiedis shouted at the crowd: "If you love us, throw more mud!" A few seconds later the stage was transformed in a place best described as a mud fight arena. | ||
1993 | 60,000 | Sonic Youth, Faith No More, Neil Young with Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Lenny Kravitz & Metallica | |||
1994 | 50,500 | A camping festival was held the night before the festival itself. dEUS and Tool performed at this stage. | |||
1995 | 65,000 | Jeff Buckley, PJ Harvey, The Offspring, The Cure, The Cranberries & R.E.M. | Second stage added. | ||
1996 | 50,000 | First time as a two-day festival. First time ever Radiohead played Paranoid Android. | |||
1997 | 50,000 | David Bowie, Daft Punk, Supergrass, [[Live (band) | |||
1998 | 20,000 | ||||
1999 | 3 – 4 July | 51,500 | Pavement, Blur, Marilyn Manson, Placebo, Robbie Williams, Faithless, Lenny Kravitz & R.E.M. | First time in Werchter only | |
2000 | 30 June – 2 July | 55,000 | Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, Bush, A Perfect Circle, Counting Crows, The Cure & Eels | First time as a three-day festival | |
2001 | 29 June – 1 July | 60,000 | Fun Lovin' Criminals, Sting, Beck, Placebo, PJ Harvey, Muse, Sigur Rós, Grandaddy, Faithless, Coldplay, Incubus | ||
2002 | 28 – 30 June | 63,000 | Sonic Youth, The White Stripes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rammstein, Queens of the Stone Age, Faithless & Coldplay | ||
2003 | 26 – 29 June | 70,000 | Radiohead, Björk, Massive Attack, Moby, Metallica, Queens of the Stone Age, R.E.M. & Coldplay | First time as a four-day-festival Arthur award for Best festival in the world | |
2004 | 1 – 4 July | 70,000 | The Cure, Metallica, KoЯn, Lenny Kravitz, Pixies, Muse (band) | Headliner [[David Bowie cancelled because of a shoulder nerve injury. 2 Many DJ's were flown back from the UEFA Euro 2004 Final in Lisbon to replace him. | |
2005 | 30 June – 3 July | 80,000 | New Order, The Chemical Brothers, Green Day, Kraftwerk, Queens of the Stone Age, Snoop Dogg, Faithless, Rammstein, Foo Fighters & R.E.M. | Arthur award for Best festival in the world | |
2006 | 29 June – 2 July | 80,000 | Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Eyed Peas, The Who, Muse, Franz Ferdinand, Placebo, dEUS & Depeche Mode | Arthur award for Best festival in the world | |
28 June – 1 July | 80,000 | Arthur award for Best festival in the world. Pearl Jam finally played at the festival after cancellations in 1992 (Eddie Vedder's stress collapse) and 2000 (drama at Roskilde). | |||
2008 | 3 – 6 July | 80,000 | The ILMC (who gives the Arthur Awards) changed her restrictions, a festival which has won 2 years in a row can't enter the next year. This change has been done in favour of the other festivals. | ||
2009 | 2 – 5 July | 80,000 | Limp Bizkit, The Killers, Lady Gaga, Placebo, Metallica, Coldplay, Kings of Leon, Oasis, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand & Nine Inch Nails | ||
1 – 4 July | 80,000 | ||||
2011 | 30 June – 3 July | 82,750 | Kings of Leon, Coldplay, Iron Maiden, The Chemical Brothers, Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age & Black Eyed Peas |
Day 2: Main Stage: Moby, Neil Young, The Verve, Jay-Z, Babyshambles, Slayer, Monza, The Black Box Revelation Pyramid Marquee: Digitalism, Hot Chip, Zita Swoon, Duffy, My Morning Jacket, Ben Folds, Patrick Watson, The Cool Kids
Babyshambles canceled and were replaced by Air Traffic.
Day 3: Main Stage: Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Kings of Leon, Editors, The Hives, Gossip, The Whigs Pyramid Marquee: Róisín Murphy, Gnarls Barkley, MGMT, Kate Nash, KT Tunstall, Galactic, Band of Horses, Donavon Frankenreiter
Day 4: Main Stage: dEUS, The Black Box Revelation, Anouk, Beck, Kaiser Chiefs, The Raconteurs, The Kooks, Panic at the Disco, The John Butler Trio Pyramid Marquee: Nightwish, Underworld, Justice, Grinderman, Mark Ronson, Hercules and Love Affair, Tim Vanhamel, DeVotchKa
Day 2: Main Stage: Coldplay, The Killers, Bloc Party, Elbow, Amy Macdonald, White Lies, Just Jack Pyramid Marquee: Lady Gaga, Arsenal, Jason Mraz, The Streets, M.Ward, Priscilla Ahn, Henry Rollins - Spoken Word
Day 3: Main Stage: 2ManyDjs, Kings of Leon, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Franz Ferdinand, Limp Bizkit, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Social Distortion, Triggerfinger Pyramid Marquee: Boys Noize, Grace Jones, Katy Perry, Mogwai, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Regina Spektor, Jasper Erkens
Day 4: Main Stage: Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Kaiser Chiefs, The Black Eyed Peas, The Mars Volta, Seasick Steve, Mastodon, Metro Station Pyramid Marquee: Milk Inc, Röyksopp, Ghinzu, The Script, Lady Linn & Her Magnificent Seven, De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, The Hickey Underworld
Category:Rock festivals in Belgium
de:Rock Werchter fr:Rock Werchter nl:Rock Werchter tr:Rock WerchterThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Category:Populated places in Belgium
de:Werchter fr:Werchter nl:Werchter pl:Werchter sv:Werchter tr:WerchterThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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