Pinkpop Festival

Pinkpop Festival or PINKPOP is a large, annual pop music festival held at Landgraaf, the Netherlands. It is usually held on the Pentecost weekend (Pinksteren in Dutch, hence the name). Starting in 1970, at Burgemeester Damen Sportpark in the town of Geleen, PinkPop is the oldest and longest running annual dedicated pop and rock music festival in the world.Today, Pinkpop is a three day festival, from Saturday through Monday, with a 60,000 people per day capacity, and with performances on 3 separate stages. During 44 editions, more than 2 million people have attended Pinkpop. Some 700 music acts have played at the festival.In 1994 (the 25th edition), it was decided to sell only 60,000 tickets, to prevent overcrowding due to the popularity of the festival. In 1995, it was made into a 2-day festival. Two years later, in 1997, this was further expanded to three days.2007 saw a spin-off, later in the year, on 11 August, called Pinkpop Classic, for an older rock audience, with bands that previously performed there in past decades. This spin-off was held again in following years, with exception of 2011, in which the organisation was not able to sign enough interesting older bands.In 2008, Pinkpop was for the first time in its history not held on Pentecost weekend, which fell too early that year for the convenience of fans and performers alike. This was decided following the 2005 edition, in which the Pentecost weekend also fell early and therefore Pinkpop could not convince many great performers to come play at the festival. Sales were disappointing in 2005, so by shifting the 2008 festival, the organisation hoped to solve these problems. Pinkpop 2008 turned out to have had the largest audience of concert attendees to date. The dates for the 2010 and 2013 edition were, for similar reasons, shifted as well.