Sweden’s Uppsala Reggae Festival scrapped

The long-running Uppsala Reggae Festival in Sweden has been canned for 2012, however the promoters do have alternative plans to help fill the void.

Here’s a rough translation from the Swedish-language press statement.

It reads as follows:

Greetings URF massive!

It has been unusually quiet from us for an unusually long time and we want to apologise for that. We know that there are many who are wondering what will happen with the Uppsala Reggae Festival in the future and that is exactly what we have thought a lot about and have also planned for. Therefore, this explains the long silence. 

After the 2011 festival it was our hope to organise another festival in 2012 and we also said we would review the festival format, concept and location. We asked, among other things, for help from you, our loyal friends, and got a fantastic response with lots of clever insights and suggestions for improvement. We have taken and developed several of these proposals into new ideas. Read more about the ideas below.

URF leaves Uppsala 

Since its inception, more than 400 reggae artists have stood on stage in front of 120,000 fans. For that we feel great pride and respect. In Uppsala there is a fantastic audience and it's been a good city to grow the festival, but there have also been challenges and limitations. Now it's time to move on and the big news is that the Uppsala Reggae Festival leaves Uppsala - but also that we will resurrect it in different forms! Our primary mission now is to take reggae to the people and provide new experiences through a new festival format, and taking it to new places. We, the URF crew, feel good about the future! 

Thanks Uppsala, Sweden, Scandinavia, Europe! We want to thank all the wonderful and loving Uppsala residents who constituted a quarter of our visitors and hope you follow us in the future. We also want to thank all of you who have travelled from different parts of Sweden, Scandinavia and Europe to experience high-quality reggae music, love and togetherness. Er, obviously we also want to meet in the future. For there's more, lot more! 

New reggae concept

In 2012 and 2013, the Uppsala Reggae Festival will be converted, renamed and re-emerge in a number of new concepts and formats. Here are some of them: 

Reggaebåt: On 29 April 2012 the "One Love Cruise" will leave Stockholm harbour for Riga. On stage will be dancehall star Mr Vegas, Kapten Rod and several other Swedish reggae and hip-hop artists. There will also be dance shows and this year's 'Dancehall Queen' 2012 will be crowned. The cruise is organised in cooperation with Tallink/Silja Line. 

Festivals: There are advanced plans already this year to start new reggae festivals in new locations across Sweden. Right now we are booking artists and planning in full - it will be soooo good. More information will follow in late March/early April. Look out! 

Swedish reggae-export: Italy, Holland, Chile, Costa Rica and Dubai want to create similar reggae festivals to Uppsala. We’re currently planning for 2012-2013, so everyone who likes to travel is welcome. 

Individual concerts: International superstars who have performed at Uppsala continue to schedule shows in Sweden. Performers this year are: 

• Abbyssinians 
• Alborosie & The Shengen Clan 
• Alaine 
• Beenie Man 
• Bounty Killer 
• Busy Signal 
• Bunny Wailer & The Solomonic Reggae Strasburg 
• Collie Buddz 
• Israel Vibration 
• Jah Cure 
• Jimmy Cliff 
• Morgan Heritage 
• Kapten Rod 

Finally we want to express how very proud and happy we are that  Kapten Rod went on to win "Best Performer" and "Golden Mic" in the P3 Gold 2012th awards. It shows what a great artist he is but also that Swedish reggae is starting to reach a wider audience. It keeps you warm in our hearts reggae! Big up! We will continue to send information via URFs newsletter until we find a new and more appropriate channel (which we will inform you when it exists). If you want nostalgia tripping around the last three years of the reggae festival, you can see pictures and movies on Life is Great blog.

Oneness / URF Crew