Shiny happy people having fun - and doing good

Roskilde Festival in Denmark.

Photo: Pavel Kalaidin

Every summer, crowds pour into Roskilde, an ancient town on the island of Zealand in Denmark, to hear bands like Radiohead and the Danish pop group Alphabeat. The annual Roskilde Festival has become the largest culture and music festival in northern Europe, with more than 150 bands—including the likes of R.E.M., the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Björk and Bob Dylan in recent years—and in excess of 100,000 attendees, who happily ignore the smells of sweat and food that are everywhere.

Dressed in bright orange vests, some 25,000 volunteers make this non-profit show possible, building the stages, providing camping security, cleaning the site and much more. Months in advance of the four-day-long July event, supporters sign up in such numbers that festival organizers have to turn people away. “The festival has made me think I’m part of something bigger,” says Maja O’Connor, from Aarhus, a volunteer for the past six years. “Even though I’m just a student and cannot afford to contribute money, I can donate my time and make a difference.” Since the event’s inception in 1971, the Roskilde Festival Charity Society has donated all profits, more than $26 million, to charity groups like Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International and the World Wildlife Fund.

“It’s a tremendous feeling to be part of the Roskilde Festival and the cohesion that goes with it,” O’Connor says. “Few are able to understand how a festival can function with 25,000 volunteers running it. The recipe is that each person gets that togetherness feeling that they are important, because each function is so significant in the greater scheme. It’s a sense that follows me throughout the year.”