Rock Werchter started in 1974 as a one-day music event featuring performances by local musicians. Since its inception, it has become a four-day event with three stages that features world-class musicians from different countries and attracts over 80,000 attendees daily.
Rock Werchter was originally known as Rock Torhout-Werchter because it was a double festival held in two locations, Werchter and Torhout. Basically, these were two separate music festivals with the same line-up. The festival dropped the Torhout site in 1999 and has been known as Rock Werchter ever since.
The festival has three stages. The Main Stage is reserved for headlining acts. The KluB C Stage (formerly known as Pyramid Marquee) is designed for lesser-known performers or bands that need smaller, more intimate venues than the Main Stage. The third stage is De Schuur, it was named after the festival’s organizer Herman Schueremans.
Like most other major music festivals, Rock Werchter features both famous musicians and up-and-coming artists. Notable bands and performers that have headlined the festival include Rammstein, Paul McCartney, The Offspring, Florence and the Machine, Iggy Pop, The Chemical Brothers, Mumford & Sons, Pearl Jam, Arctic Monkeys, Metallica, and many more. Despite its name, Rock Werchter doesn’t focus solely on rock music. It encompasses a variety of music styles including classic rock, indie rock, alternative rock, heavy metal, hip hop, pop, and EDM (electronic dance music).
Rock Werchter festival can host almost 90,000 visitors daily, of which over 65,000 stay at the festival for all four days. It is usually held on the first weekend of the summer vacation in Belgium, which is either the last weekend of June or the first weekend of July. Some other music festivals, such as the Roskilde Festival in Denmark and the Main Square Festival in France, almost always run concurrently with Rock Werchter, so they can “share” performers. The event has an international audience with festival goers arriving from all over Belgium, the UK and other European countries and even from as far as South Africa and Australia.
Photo: rockwerchter.be
