Sweden Rock Festival is a rock festival outside the town of Sölvesborg in Blekinge in southern Sweden. The festival offers the best possible mix of classic rock, hard rock, metal, blues and related genres. We also pay alot of attention to the overall festival experience, and our aim is to improve the level of comfort for our guests every year.
We not only present our audiences with the best music in the world, we also create a fantastic festival area with excellent service and hospitality. For instance, our five stages ensure that each artist gets a decent set length, while our guests always have different styles of music to choose from at any given time. Furthermore, we work hard to make sure that there are many different kinds of food offered to our visitors, while lines are kept to a minimum. We also offer clean, vacuum-flushing toilets instead of overfilled porta-potties, and when other festivals clean their grounds after their events are over, we have a larg number of people continuously making sure that our guests can enjoy sitting down on our grass slopes throughout the festival. And so on.
Joy and community lay the foundation for "the spirit of Sweden Rock"; a unique sentiment which has evolved naturally amongst our visitors over the years. These days, the calm and friendly atmosphere is really a strong hallmark for Sweden Rock Festival.
We believe that one of the reasons for the good-natured atmosphere is that our visitors all share love for hard rock and metal. But for sure, all the returning guests also set examples for all new visitors. Thank you for that!
But what does the spirit of Sweden Rock imply IRL? Well, simply that people get on well together here, help eachother out and socialize with both known and unknown people. And our tip is, that if you see anyone that needs assistans - offer your help. You will not only make that person's day, you will also set an example that will multiply across the festival.
Cause we wish for nothing more, than for Sweden Rock Festival to stay a trouble-free and friendly zone! So that you can enjoy the music, indulge the amtosphere and hang out with the brothers and sisters that we simply call the best audience in the world...
Over the years, we have built an organization of people who are in love with the music, know the festival by heart and are experts in their respective fields. This has given Sweden Rock Festival a reputation for being one of the best organized festivals in the world. Thanks to our magnificent audience, the festival has also become known as a calm, family-friendly event. Many see the good-natured, Sweden-Rock atmosphere as the festival's greatest trait.
In short, Sweden Rock Festival is a place where you don't have to worry about anything but relaxing and having a great time.
The embryo of what is Sweden Rock Festival today, saw the light of day already in 1992. Under the name of Sommarfestivalen i Olofström, the organizers wanted to offer music which was quite unusual on the Swedish festival scene at the time; classical rock, hard rock, folk music and blues. Two of the acts that first year were Nazareth and Wishbone Ash.
In 1993 the festival moved to the neighbouring city of Karlshamn, and changed its name to Karlshamn Rock Festival. During the years of 1993-1997, the festival slowly changed into a pure rock festival, booking acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath (Tony Martin as singer), Bachman Turner Overdrive and Fleetwood Mac.
In 1998, the festival had outgrown its location and was moved to the current field in the village of Norje outside the city of Sölvesborg. The name Karlshamn Rock Festival was kept, and this first year in Norje offered bands like Blue Öyster Cult, Status Quo, Simple Minds (!) and Dee Snider.
In 1999, the name Sweden Rock Festival was born, and the hard-rock focus became clearer. Manowar, Mercyful Fate and Motörhead were some of the popular acts this year.
Today, Sweden Rock is one of the most famous rock- and metal festivals in the world, with visitors from over 50 different countries every year. Bands like Iron Maiden, Kiss, Black Sabbath, Guns n' Roses, Rush, Judas Priest, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, Accept, Alice Cooper, Soundgarden, Mötley Crüe, Scorpions, Volbeat, ZZ Top, Sabaton, In Flames and many many more have all played at our festival.