PinkPop

Pinkpop Festival, or Pinkpop for short, is an annual rock festival held at Landgraaf, Netherlands. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it is the oldest annual festival in the worldVerify sourcereason:Show Guinness Book record is accurate. See Oregon_Country_Fair node, this festival is older, and this (mis?)information has been propagated across the web, see: date=March 2009. It is held annually on the Pentecost weekend (Pinksteren in Dutch, hence the name). In 1970, the first festival took place in Geleen, now part of municipality Sittard-Geleen and was held on the Monday following that weekend.

Today, Pinkpop is a 3 day festival, from Friday to Sunday, and visited by approximately 60,000 people a day with performances on 3 separate stages. In 35 years, 1.5 million people have attended Pinkpop. More than 500 musical acts have played at the festival.

In 1994 (the 25th edition), it was decided to sell only 60,000 tickets, to prevent overcrowding due to the popularity of the festival. In 1995, it was made into a 2-day festival. Two years later, in 1997, this was further expanded to three days.

2007 saw a spin-off, later in the year, on 11 August, called Pinkpop Classic, for an older rock audience, with bands that previously performed there in past decades.

In 2008 Pinkpop was for the first time in its history, not held on Pentecost weekend which fell too early that year for the convenience of fans and performers alike.