A number of European festivals were forced to shut doors early or cancel completely this past weekend (26-28 June) due to extreme heat and weather incidents.

On Friday (26 June), the Dutch electronic music festival Defqon.1 were forced to cancel the event due to a code red heat warning being issued by Dutch authorities. In a statement, Defqon.1 said “we are absolutely devastated by this development. Tens of thousands of dedicated Weekend Warriors are currently staying on the Camping Grounds, many of whom have travelled far and prepared for this weekend for months.”

“Asking them to return home tomorrow is the worst-case scenario, especially with a fully operational festival and everything in place to welcome them,” the festival went on to say.

The French festival Retro C Trop Festival also cancelled its Sunday programming after storms forced some performances to be pulled shortly before the acts were set to take the stage.

The B-52s, who were set to perform at Retro C Trop Festival, said in a social media post that “the storm made it impossible to continue, and the safety of our fans and everyone on site had to come first.” The frontman for the band, Fred Schneider, also said that “the promoter knew the dangerous storm that was brewing and on its way to The C Trop Music Festival.

Events such as Garorock in France and Paradise City in Belgium were also impacted by the European heatwave.

The cancellations are just the latest story involving extreme weather and how its impacting this year’s festival season. As Paul Knightley, DTN senior weather risk manager for EU weather operations, told us earlier this month, “extreme heat is an increasingly common operational and safety challenge for outdoor events,” and that festivals should “heat management plans should become as routine as crowd management plans,” as climate change continues to increase the risk of extreme weather events at festivals.

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