Czech festival Rock for People named in top 10 European festivals

Czech annual music festival “Rock for People” has been included in the top 10 best medium-sized festivals in Europe by the European Festival Awards, according to a press release. The news comes amid the announcement that rock band Papa Roach will feature in the 2023 installment of the festival.

“It is great to see our work get recognized internationally – Rock for People has hosted several acts that are now the top 10 best new artists…such as Turnstile, Holly Humberstone, and Yard Act,” says festival co-founder Michal Thomes.

Rock for People is one of the largest yearly rock festivals in Czechia. Established in 1995, it had been held in Kolín up until 2006, when it changed location to an open space in Hradec Králove to accommodate its rising popularity. 

This year, the four-day festival announced one new act daily in an advent calendar-style countdown this December. Notable acts to feature at the next version of the festival – to take place June 8-11, 2023 – are heavy metal band Slipknot, rapper Machine Gun Kelly, and pop-rock band The 1975.

It is an open-air festival with one main outdoor stage, holding up to 30,000 people. It also has two stages based in tents, holding a total of 6,000. The 2022 edition of the festival saw an estimated 35,000 attendees with over 100 different acts. 

It has in the past hosted renowned acts such as The Killers, Skrillex, The Prodigy, Green Day, and Muse. The festival has grown substantially in the past 20 years; there had been just 12,000 visitors to the event in 2002.

The festival was in December recognized as being in the top 10 festivals of a medium size (holding up to a capacity of 40,000 visitors), ranked alongside the likes of the “Best Kept Secret” festival in the Netherlands and the “Happiness Festival” in Germany. The promotional arm of the festival, Ameba Production, also won an award for being in the top 10 promoters in Europe.

There will now be a grand finale, to take place on Jan. 18, 2023, that will announce the best European festival overall.

Rock for People has earned accolades in the past, winning the Czech Grammy Award for the best event of the year in 2000 and 2007. In 2010 it was awarded the Greener Festival Award for its environmental sustainability. It was nominated for the Green Operations Award, a similar accolade, in 2013.

If interested, tickets are available to purchase on the official website.