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Old 07-09-2025, 04:52 PM
ilas123 ilas123 is offline
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For what it's worth. The event itself is not really dying. Turnout is as big as usual, at least for the men, and now they also include wheelchair users and their professional helpers (imagine a female wheelchair user doing it with their female paid helper, that would be something). Crowds this year were also the biggest in many years.

They do have huge problems getting women to run, though, as you can also see. The organisers had walked around for three days in the camps asking girls to run, and not a single soul was down for it. All women who ran showed up in person and registered themselves to run.

And I also think that is why they are now trying to restrict the press from going too close to the participants. At least they can't forbid them around the running field completely as they have the right to be and film at all places in the campsite. But the media presence is definitely why it's so hard to get women to run, I would suggest, and you can feel a growing dislike of the tabloids being there. Especially Ekstra Bladet with their way past his best-before date reporter, who always asks stupid questions in a gross way, and who has a bad reputation in Denmark. But EB keep using him because they think it's edgy. But he's actually just ruining the fun.

Another reason could be that it's usually foreigners making up the numbers for the girls. They don't really know what they sign up for, as they may not have heard of it, and maybe don't think about how it gets all over the news. And they probably don't care that much either, as the folks back home probably won't find out or see it anyway.

There's just one problem here. Roskilde has switched to a more Danish-rooted music program post-COVID. The international names have become more expensive and less interested in festivals, as they can make more money during their own tours. Danish music in Denmark is also more popular than ever before and makes up 99% of the charts. This also means that the amount of international guests at Roskilde Festival is as low as ever.

Norwegians have also historically been good represented at the run, but since Norwegian news outlets picked up on it some years ago, that also dropped a lot. They don't really cover it anymore, but most Norwegian guests know about it now and know how exposed the event are.

Last edited by ilas123; 07-09-2025 at 05:03 PM.
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