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If you walk through the woods outside Skanderborg on a normal autumn day, it is hard to imagine that here, every year on the second weekend in August, more than 40,000 people gather (the general public, volunteers, musicians and other good sorts) with the sole purpose of partying the weekend away in style. And that, in the thick of the woods, it is possible to imbibe almost anything to satisfy one’s musical, culinary, social or vinous tastes. That there are basins with running water and flush toilets. That, under the open skies, you can be bombarded by lights, sounds, smells and a wealth of impressions and loads of beautiful people. And that, just a couple of weeks later, it is all cleared away and the woods again look their normal self. But this is how the festival has developed, ever since 1980 when a bunch of young idealists decided to launch the musical festival which they felt the town needed.

Back in 1980, Skanderborg did not exactly offer a plethora of musical activities for its thirsty youth. However, the beautiful old beech woods represented a natural meeting place with an amphitheatre which, over the years, had been used for all kinds of entertainment. This is where the citizens of Skanderborg and the surrounding area had met since 1928 – for cattle shows, opera performances and political meetings. Even by 1938 it was known as Denmark’s most beautiful open-air stage, and was even the venue for the Danish temperance society’s annual congress. Of course, it was not exactly temperance which characterised the five young people who applied for and were granted permission for one one-day festival in 1980. Their dream was to create an event which could raise the money required to establish the permanent music venue which they felt Skanderborg so badly needed.

As a rule, it is extremely beautiful in the old beech woods – and it is very likely that this was also the case on 5 July 1980. However, no detailed account is available from those who were present that day – and very little was written about it in the press. The organisers remember it as being a lovely day, even though several of them became so inebriated that most details have long since been forgotten. One of the organisers almost entirely failed to experience the festival which he had been working so hard to help prepare at all – slightly excessive use of a hash pipe early on made him both paranoid and frightened of the trees, and he had to go home. One thing that is certain is that the PA technicians from Aarhus were not too happy with the conditions when they showed up in the morning with the sound system – and were forced to hurriedly erect a small tent to cover the mixing desk and other gear.

Apart from the spartan stage, with its crude roof constructed with borrowed tarpaulins, the festival consisted of a mobile site-hut lent by the municipality, a family tent from which sausages were sold, a beer tent and finally, a small stall selling mosquito spray and Luna records.

The nearest public toilet was at the Capri restaurant – several hundred metres away – so two latrines were placed at the end of the site-hut.
The audiences’ excretions ended up in large toilet buckets, and the job of emptying these was shared between the performing musicians. As this was not a particularly pleasant task, one usually waited until the very last minute before carrying the buckets out to the hole which had been dug in the woods for the purpose. This meant, of course, that the buckets were rather full, in fact almost overfull, so it required a certain dexterity to balance the splashing buckets out into the woods. One of the first stories from the festival is that of the lead singer, who had bought a pair of smart, pointed and high cowboy boots because he wanted to look really good on stage. In fact, they were so smart that he wore them over his jeans. Unfortunately, he misjudged the splashing from the toilet buckets – and ended up with a good deal of the slops collecting in his new boots. Just try to imagine what it must have then been like for him to play the rock star in his footwear – one of the people who witnessed it says that the singer’s career almost stopped there…

While a hole might have been dug for excrement and urine, the organisers failed completely to take account of the supporters who arrived with the band Cozie from the Aarhus suburb of Åbyhøj. They literally took over the entire site with their motorcycles, insisted on commandeering the committee’s hut – and generally behaved like rockers. Nobody wanted any trouble, and their demands were therefore met, including Cozie being allowed to play last at the festival, a slot that was otherwise reserved for the main act which was Luna.

But the music played, people had a great time and lots of Faxe Fad beers were sold over the counter in the beer tent. Spam Band came and performed. Not, as it happened, with any instruments, but with two girls who danced and sang chorus occasionally, and with the young Philbert (who was actually hired as a drummer), who just stood there shouting “spam, spam, spam”, and “rotten, rotten, rotten”, for what seemed an eternity and finally the lead singer, an English hippie who would recite acid texts on top of this strange background noise. Thunderbirds were there with their smooth dance hall machine, as was Kurt, with their versions of songs from ZZ Top’s and Ry Cooder’s repertoire. Bocachio – which later became the avant-garde group Picnic – almost certainly played their own numbers, as was probably the case with Sabrock, a band which, as the name suggests, came from Sabro. The organisers, however, still remember Freche Bande pretty clearly, partly because of the band’s frontman, Bent Kehlet, who did a tremendous Jimi Hendrix guitar rendition – but mostly because the group’s press release promised “Hot dogs, sharks and whipping” and “mutilation of grilled chickens”.

The top group Luna played their set – but as Cozie was about to go on stage as the last band, so much rain had fallen that it was reckless to continue. The decision made the organisers extremely unpopular, and some remember being chased around the woods by fans of the band who wanted to get their own back for the cancellation. It ended though with Cozie being promised a place in the amateur competition the organisers had planned to hold the following winter – and this mollified the fans so much that none of the organisers suffered physically.

There is no real record of how big the audience was – but notes from back then indicate that between 600 and 1,000 people were present. However, many people made their way home early in the afternoon, fed up with the constant rain; by the time Cozie was cancelled and the festival thereby closed, everyone remaining could fit into the beer tent. So that was where everybody gathered and actually had a pretty good time. As it gradually became so dark in the woods that it was almost impossible to find one’s way out of them again, the delighted organisers and their helpers moved location to the local pub Marius Øltapper to celebrate a successful festival.

A couple of days later, the till needed counting. But as it was solidly welded from 3 mm steel, a blowtorch was required to open it – consequently several bank notes were slightly scorched around the edges. Also, there wasn’t as much cash as the organisers had hoped. Altogether, the festival had cost about 17,000 Danish kroner, but there was only 13,000 kroner with which to pay the bills. Fortunately the local printer saved the day – the amount outstanding to him for posters and programmes almost corresponded to the deficit – and he said to the committee that they would just have to hold another festival the following year so he could be repaid then.

The second Skanderborg Festival was held on 15 August 1981, a much more ambitious event and with a programme to match. TV-2 and Sneakers were the big names, and everyone agrees that it was a fantastic festival. The sun shone, there was a great atmosphere and the music went down extremely well. But still the budget could neither make ends meet nor generate a profit. The festival was expected to cost about 110,000 kroner – and to break even with a paying audience of 1,500-1,800 people.

How many people actually came though is something of a mystery – for some reason the ticket booth was unmanned most of the day, so apart from those who had bought tickets in advance, most enjoyed free entry. It would appear that there was a certain lack of clarity about who should be on duty and when – and there were fewer people available to clear up and help than the list of helpers suggested. There were definitely far more people than the previous year – but it ended with total outgoings of about 150,000 kroner and a deficit of 35,000 kroner, despite what the organisers were able to contribute in the way of profits from several other events.

This was a considerable sum of money for a bunch of young people who were either studying, apprentices or on the dole (which back then amounted to 250 kroner per week). Once again, local businessmen saved the day by offering extensive credit – and the third festival also proved to be third time lucky. In 1982, Skanderborg Festival was held as a two-day festival on 13-14 August, and here 4,000 people showed up to something that had all the hallmarks of a professional event, with names such as the Anne Linnet Band, Björn Afzelius and Tøsedrengene as the big crowd-pullers. The festival returned a profit and the debts were paid off.

In 1985, the name of the festival was changed to Denmark’s Most Beautiful Festival – and over the years it has grown to become the second-largest music festival in the country. And much more than a festival. Today there is almost a cornucopia of things to see and do. It is an event that appeals to all the senses, and which each year is rapturously attended by a paying audience of almost 25,000. Today it is almost par for the course that the festival is sold out months in advance – and with total revenues of more than 60 million kroner (2006), it provides the financial means to draw some of the biggest international names in music to the beech woods, and each year find new and spectacular initiatives, such as getting a decommissioned railway train or an old aeroplane transported out to the site to give the enthusiastic audience yet another experience. However, the most fantastic – or beautiful, if you like – thing is that Denmark’s Most Beautiful Festival is still run according to the same principles and by the same festival club which was created back in 1980. Denmark’s Most Beautiful Festival is only possible because – despite being professionally run and managed – it continues to be a non-profit-making event, and staged by about 10,000 of the festival club’s voluntary helpers. Profits can only be used for one thing – making future festivals even better.

Poul Martin Bonde

Author of the book “Smuk” (“Beautiful”) about the first 25 years of the Skanderborg Festival.