Denmark’s Haven Festival will be back this year in Copenhagen from August 10 to 11. The experimental festival that is equal parts a beer festival, food festival, and music festival had its inaugural year last year and was full of ups and downs — but mainly ups.
Haven Festival Crosses Disciplines
Those downs included the incessant rain and cold (it was a Danish summer after all), long lines, and generally just not enough to do. The ups included the beautiful backdrop that is the harbor at Refshaleøen, an endless variety of beer, and fine food, as well cool, unexpected collaborations like that of the National and Bon Iver. Personal highlights included a performance by the up-and-coming Liss and eating funnel cake off of edible plates (FYI they tasted like cereal).
Sigurd Hartkorn Plaetner, Haven’s spokesman, commented on last year’s festival saying, “We used the first year to get to know ourselves, the site, and our guests, and it was our clear impression that the visitors went along with the kinky, strange, and challenging festival. Now that we know the setting, we wish to take the artistic experiments, constellations, and collaboration one step further in order to challenge ourselves and our guests.”
The first 12 names of the line-up have been announced and it’s as eclectic as you could hope, ranging from German industrial punk to Swedish skeleton rock and American-Ghanian soul to the world’s oldest orchestra.
Aaron Dressner, partner in Haven and guitarist of The National, says of the line-up, “We are excited to announce the first acts, anchored by our friends Arcade Fire. We will again focus on cross-disciplinary collaboration across a diverse mix of artists with plenty of surprises in store. We are also thrilled to be able to feature some of the truly great new artists of our generation along with established legends like Einstürzende Neubauten, and influential jazz musician Kamasi Washington. We have much more to announce over the coming months and can’t wait to share HAVEN with you again in August.”
With a headliner like Arcade Fire, renowned for their live performances, on the line-up, it surely sounds as though the Haven Festival is looking to provide a warm embrace, even if it’s just figuratively.
The festival will once again take place at Refshalevej and tickets can already be purchased here.
