A visit to the rock museum in Roskilde is a journey through seven decades of music history. In RAGNAROCK, the national museum for pop, rock and youth culture, you won’t find a classic museum setting, but a living music experimentarium: you can hear, see and feel how everything from rock’n’roll to pop to contemporary beats has developed. The exhibitions are interactive, so you can explore music history with your own hands.

The building itself is an experience: the spectacular, golden studded façade and the mix of raw materials reflect the raw and glamorous side of rock. Inside, you walk across a red carpet and immerse yourself in the creative energy of youth cultures – from the 1950s to the present day. Multimedia stations tell stories about music that connects generations and shapes entire societies. The museum is located in the creative district of Musicon, just a stone’s throw from the site of the famous Roskilde Festival, so you can combine your visit with a stroll through the innovative neighbourhood.

(individually paid) For many of you, a warm welcome dinner with a good glass of wine or a cool drink is the perfect start to a conference. Sharing food and drinks quickly creates a relaxed atmosphere in which you can get to know each other and have your first inspiring conversations. This is how strangers become colleagues, and the evening provides the ideal setting to get in the mood for the coming days and celebrate together

(hosted by Roskilde Festival) Check-in at the venue – informal arrival coffee, badge pickup.

A short welcome session covering the conference structure, practical details and a first briefing on the “3F Toolboxes.”

The session “First Impressions from the Festival Season” is an interactive forum in which you as participants have the say right from the start. How did the 2025 festival season feel for you? What challenges have you encountered and what new trends have you observed? This year, many organisers faced completely new hurdles. Extreme weather events increased, while at the same time we faced new security threats: the number of unauthorised drone overflights at major events rose, at the Fête de la Musique in France 145 visitors reported being stabbed and there were numerous, sometimes fatal, incidents involving vehicles driving into crowds. Some of these events have not yet reached the festivals – or have they?

This session invites you to address these issues: Have you experienced similar phenomena at your festivals? How have you dealt with large crowds, overloaded infrastructures and new technological trends? What opportunities do you recognise in these new trends? In an open exchange, we will gather your insights in order to recognise patterns, share successes and prepare for the next challenges together.

By collating experiences from the 2025 season right at the start, we can address these specifically over the course of the next few days and perhaps work together to find solutions that benefit everyone.

25 years ago, 9 young men died during a concert at Roskilde Festival as a result of a crowd collapse. This incident has left a big mark both at Roskilde Festival but also across Europe, where cooperation on knowledge sharing and exchange of experiences within safety at festivals and live music has grown. The YES group has had this as its purpose since its inception. Chris Kemp and Henrik Bondo Nielsen, the initiators of the YES Group idea, will give their advice on what we can bring from the past, and also point out why constant attention is necessary.

In this first tactical exercise, you will be placed in a fictitious scenario in front of the main stage at Roskilde Festival 2025. Your task is to develop a tactical strategy in the shortest possible time to ensure the safety of visitors. You plan routes and areas, allocate resources and assess risks – all under the time pressure of a real incident. This will show you how well spatial planning, teamwork and communication work in stressful situations. The scenario is designed in such a way that it offers a challenge for all levels of experience and requires creative solutions.

Afterwards, all groups come together in plenary to share their experiences from the exercise. We analyse together which tactical approaches worked well and where there were coordination problems. Which measures could you have prioritised differently? Were there any unforeseen bottlenecks? These discussions help you to recognise weaknesses and identify best practices. This turns the simulation into a valuable learning process that prepares you for real operational situations and strengthens mutual learning within the community.

• FOCUS 2: Weather Risk Management
• FOCUS 3: Training of Key Skills
• FOCUS 4: Showstop Procedures

In the afternoon, the focus will be on your active participation: using the Design Thinking method, you will work in small groups to develop practice-orientated toolboxes on key event safety topics. Design thinking is a human-centred and iterative method for solving complex problems. It helps to understand the needs of users and to redefine problems from a human-centred perspective. Empathy, clear problem definition, creative brainstorming, prototyping and testing result in concrete tools that are then available to the entire community. Whether brainstorming, worst-case ideas, rapid prototyping or user interviews – many of these methods invite you to abandon established thought patterns and develop innovative solutions together.

Weather Risk Management
Extreme weather has long been one of the biggest challenges for festivals and it is obviously getting worse: heat has become a growing threat to the safety of our festivals. Your aim in this workshop is to develop risk tools: Checklists for lightning and storm hazards, communication guidelines for heat or heavy rain events, templates for evacuation and shelter-in-place plans, and recommendations for collaborations with meteorologists. Ideas such as mobile weather sensors, apps for visitor information or simulation games can also be part of the toolbox.

Key Skills Training
A festival is only as strong as its team: well-trained staff work confidently, react proactively and ensure that everything runs smoothly. Experienced producers emphasise that every helping hand needs to know the event space, procedures and emergency protocols. In this workshop, you will identify critical training content, such as evacuation plans, first aid procedures and crowd management techniques, as well as customer-centred service and de-escalation. You can design modular training concepts, practice drills, e-learning courses or train-the-trainer programmes. The toolbox could include role-play scripts, digital flashcards, sample videos or a schedule for regular exercises.

Showstop Procedures
Sometimes entertainment has to give way to a clear safety decision. Who has the right to stop the show? What events trigger it? According to current guidelines, structural hazards, severe weather conditions, medical emergencies or security threats are clear reasons. The communication strategy is just as important: an experienced speaker informs the audience via the loudspeakers and screens, calmly explains the situation and gives clear instructions. In this workshop, you will develop standardised flow charts, code words, communication scripts and tools for coordinating with emergency services. Possible examples include a structured “show-stop protocol”, a collection of pre-formulated PA announcements in several languages or checklists for evacuation decisions in various scenarios.

The toolboxes are presented and discussed in the large group. By combining design thinking methods and “learning in the round”, we not only learn from each other, but also create jointly usable tools that sustainably improve the safety and professionalism of events

After an intensive conference day, there is nothing better than getting together around the barbecue. Our Delegates Dinner/BBQ creates a relaxed atmosphere where you can chat over good food and cool drinks. This shared meal strengthens team spirit and provides the perfect setting to share experiences and celebrate the festival community.

The security landscape for events is changing rapidly: in addition to traditional risks, we are now facing completely new threats – targeted attacks, unauthorised drone overflights and cybercriminal attacks on ticketing and communication systems. An incident at the Green Day concert in 2024, where a concert had to be interrupted due to a drone, showed just how disruptive such an aircraft can be. Insidious attacks such as needle and spiking attacks – most recently at the Fête de la Musique in France, where 145 people were affected – and the growing risk of cyberattacks on ticket platforms also require new protection concepts.

In this session, you will work in teams to identify the most relevant new threats to festivals and concerts. Which attack scenarios do we need to play through? How do we counter drone attacks that not only cause disruption but could also be misused as weapon carriers? And what strategies help us to defend against cyberattacks that manipulate data or paralyse the access system? Together, you will develop preventive measures, emergency plans and communication strategies that go beyond traditional security measures. The approaches developed should not only protect your own events, but also serve as a standard for the industry.

The groups will then present their results: You will present your threat analyses and show which innovative strategies you have developed to ward off attacks, defend against drones or strengthen cyber resilience. You can also discuss lessons learnt from real incidents. The joint debate on strengths and potential improvements will help to refine the concepts developed and transfer them to the community as practical tools – so that all organisers are better prepared for the new threats.

In this intense scenario, you will take on the role of the operational team for a special day at the festival. Over the next 90 minutes, a realistic sequence of events unfolds before you with several interlocking events – from an accident on the site to sudden changes in the weather and unexpected security situations. Each situation requires quick judgement and the consistent application of your previously developed procedures. The aim: to experience the complexity of a real festival day, make decisions under time pressure and at the same time strengthen teamwork. Be ready to test your skills in a dynamic environment – and experience how important a trained eye and clear procedures are in practice.

At the end of the conference, we invite you to an open round table. Here you can share your impressions of the last few days, share personal insights and think together about the next steps the YES Group and our community should take. Which methods or tools have helped you the most? Where do you still see room for improvement? This feedback session thrives on exchange – take the opportunity to learn from each other, make suggestions and help shape the future direction of our work.

To round off the conference, we will meet for a farewell drink. In a relaxed atmosphere, you can continue conversations, deepen new contacts and bring the day to a cosy close. The drinks are to be paid for individually, but the good humour and the lively community are free of charge. A great opportunity to say goodbye and hopefully arrange to meet up again soon.