Krister Lindholm, one of the guys responsible for Rockstad: Falun Festival took some time to respond a few questions regarding the 2010 edition of the festival (with bands like Gamma Ray and Sabaton confirmed among others), a little history of it and some more details. You can check below his answers:

Hello Krister and thanks for taking some time to respond our questions!
Hi there and thanks for noticing us!
Could you please make me a short description and history of Rockstad:Falun? How the idea appeared, how many editions had the festival so far?
Well, me and Pär from Sabaton wanted to do a special Sabaton-show back in 2008 and we invited som local bands and made the first issue of Rockstad: Falun a total success when we sold out the venue (1600 tickets) and went through the night wit no problems or other negative stuff.
After that we decided to make the Rockstad: Falun festival an annual event and we started the plans for 2009 within a few weeks after the premiere.
2009 we went outside to do an open air 1-day festival, everything went out good but we had 4 days of heavy rain during that weekend so we didn’t manage to get more than 3000 people out Anyway, we made very early plans for 2010 and said that we booked sunshine for this upcoming event!
Can you give me some more details regarding this year’s edition? Important things for the participants?
I think the most important stuff in this years edition is the bands playing.. We have taken a huge step up this time and have a bunch of great bands playing.
Already we have 14 nations confirmed to visit us and the ticket pre-sale is going just great. We have 5000 tickets out and it might be sold out before the festival starts so I’m very excited!
Rockstad: Falun 2010 has Gamma Ray and Sabaton among other bands. How many people do you expect this year to participate at the festival?
As mentioned above i think it will be 5000 tickets sold + guests etc so around 5500-6000 if the weather gods is on our side…
Falun is also the hometown of Sabaton. They played last year at the festival and this year also. It’s a special relation between you and the guys?
Yes, i have worked along with Sabaton for a few years and they all are my personal friends. Joakim & Pär are also co-owners in Rockstad: Falun and we aim for the same goal with all projects we handle.
You had some problems with finishing the festival-camp area. What were the causes?
The main cause was that our organization is to small to handle such a big project at the moment. We don’t want to take a big chance and risk anything, or to deliver a bad solution for a festival camp. Security in a festival camp is very important and we simply couldn’t get all thing in place this year.
Also the winter up here can be a problem due to all snow that’s melting into water in that spot were we wanted to have our camp, a wet place is not a nice camp-area
…Festival camp for 2011 will be main priority!
How important is Rockstad for the city? Do you have many participants that come from different parts of the country?
Falun really needs this kind of festival. The interest for heavy metal music in this area of Sweden is big and this town don’t have any other alike festivals so we thought that we just had to arrange a great thing. The city hall loves this idea and we have a lot of support from them and a bunch of other companies and organizations.
We have like 60% from the local area and the rest comes from other parts of Sweden along with 14 (as i write) countries. We have confirmed visitors from both USA and Australia, and that is just so cool!
Thank you for your time and I wish you to have a great 2010 edition of Rockstad: Falun! If you have something else to add…
Thank you and welcome to visit us anytime mate!

John Harper / Krister Lindholm

You can check HERE more details regarding the festival, or visit the following links:

http://www.rockstadfalun.se/
http://www.myspace.com/rockstadfalun
http://www.kristerlindholm.se/

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