Danish shipping and logistics company DFDS took it upon itself to analyze Europe’s festival landscape, and determine the most popular, and up-and-coming events on the continent.
DFDS is one of the ferry companies connecting the Nordic regions, as well as the UK, and mainland Europe. It is used by families, groups, and solo travelers, many of whom are traveling to a different country to experience a music festival.
A list of 444 European music festivals was compiled across 53 countries, and DFDS generated a list of search terms for each festival, which were put into Google’s keyword planner to generate the search volumes for each keyword between January 2022 and January 2024 on a monthly basis (full methodology below).
These are some of the interesting findings.
While most Europeans can choose from several festivals taking place in their respective home countries, locals often travel abroad for their favorite events, and artists.
Analyzing Google searches in each country, DFDS fond the most popular home and away festivals in every nation. Tomorrowland stands out as the favorite amongst Europeans, ranking “as the top away festival in a staggering 46 out of 53 countries,” according to a summary of DFDS’s findings.
A total of 16.5 million Google searches for Tomorrowland have been made since 2022. This year’s edition marks the 20th anniversary, and takes place across two weekends, July 19-21 and 26-28, in Boom, Belgium. Headliners include David Guetta, Alesso and Swedish House Mafia. Tomorrowland 2024 is completely sold out.
See: Tomorrowland Announces 2024 Lineup With Swedish House Mafia, REZZmau5 & More
Music fans in Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, and Poland even show more interest in foreign festivals than their own. Poland’s searches for Tomorrowland, for instance, were “almost double those for its iconic local event, Orange Warsaw.”
However, locals may simply not have a need to google an event they’re utterly familiar with.
An exception: Glastonbury. Glastonbury Festival in the UK is the most popular home festival of all countries analyzed, with over seven million searches by Brits alone since 2022, according to DFDS’s findings.
To put that into perspective: in France, Hellfest, an open-air rock festival in Clisson, western France, is the most popular home fest, with almost three million searches since 2022.
Tomorrowland (16,451,430 Google searches since 2022), Glastonbury (9,153,600), and Hellfest (4,137,780) are also the top three most popular music festivals across Europe, based on Google searches since 2022, with Germany’s Parookaville, and Rock am Ring, ranking fourth and fifth, amassing over six million searches between them.
Aside from Glastonbury, three more UK festivals appear in the top 10: Reading & Leeds, as well as Download Festival.
DFDS also selected what it describes as “Europe’s most up-and-coming music festivals,” by looking at the largest increase in Google searches since 2022. The title goes to Big Smoke Festival, scheduled for July 6 at Crystal Palace Park in London, England, which saw a year-on-year search increase of 15,489%.
The festival is organized by Skepta, who will perform alongside The Streets, Mahalia, JME, and more. It is promoted by Festival Republic. GA tickets for £72.80 ($92.35), and VIP tickets for £126.50 ($160.50) are on sale.
Coming in second and third in the up-and-coming category are South Ocean Festival, a two-day event in Malmö, Sweden July 12-13, featuring an eclectic lineup of international, and local Swedish acts (1,257% search increase); and Vaulen Open Air at Vaulen Beach in Stavanger, Norway, which already took place this year, June 7-8, with a lineup led by Jason Derulo, Tom Odell, and Keane (574% search increase).
UK/Euro Lineups: New Skepta Fest, Anniversaries For Rock En Seine, Rock In Rio & Flow
Methodology:
A list of 444 European music festivals was compiled across 53 countries, and DFDS generated a list of search terms for each festival. The variations were: “{festival name} festival”, “{festival name} tickets”, and “tickets for {festival name}”. The only term that deviated from this formula was Glastonbury, which didn’t include the addition of the term “festival” as its name precedes the location name.
These terms were put into Google Keyword Planner, which generated the search volumes for each keyword from January 2022 to January 2024, month by month.
The data was then aggregated across all 53 countries to identify the most popular festivals within each selected country and the most popular festival outside of each selected country.
All the data was then grouped to create a master table, which contains the total search data for every festival across the whole of Europe. This included a year-by-year breakdown to identify increases or decreases in search volume.
Note: Tomorrowland is primarily hosted in Belgium, which has been assigned its home country in this study.