Sweden Rock Festival is a

rock festival A rock festival is an open-air rock concert featuring many different performers, typically spread over two or three days and having a campsite and other amenities and forms of entertainment provided at the venue. Some festivals are singular eve ...

outside the town of Sölvesborg in

Blekinge Blekinge () is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's second-smallest provin ...

in southern

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. The festival offers the best possible mix of classic rock, hard rock, metal, blues and related genres. The first version of the festival, known as Sommarfestivalen i Olofström, was held in Olofström in 1992. In 1993 the festival moved to Karlshamn, and changed its name to Karlshamn Rock Festival. In 1998, the festival moved to Norje, although the name Karlshamn Rock Festival was kept. In 1999 the name was changed to the Sweden Rock Festival. When the festival began in 1992, it featured nine relatively unknown bands and it only lasted one day. The next year the festival was expanded to two days and more bands were added to the line-up. From 1993 to 2002 the festival would last two days; over those years it would also begin to feature bigger name acts. In 2000 the festival was expanded to three days but it returned to two days the following year. From 2003 to 2006 the festival lasted three days and had by then featured some of the biggest acts. From 2007 the festival has been expanded to four days and will feature approximately 120 different bands/artists. Some notable appearances in the past have been

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, Dio,

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Yngwie Malmsteen Yngwie Johan Malmsteen (; born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck, on 30 June 1963) is a Swedish-American guitarist. He first became known in the 1980s for his neoclassical metal, neoclassical playing style in heavy metal music, heavy metal, and has ...

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, Uriah Heep,

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, Accept,

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, W.A.S.P,

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, The Orchestra,

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, Ghost and

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. The festival has also worked as a comeback scene for bands like Triumph and '' Thundersteel'' line-up

Riot A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The p ...

. Bachman & Turner started their world reunion tour here in June 2010. In 2013 both Rush and

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together with

were headliners for the festival. The

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

caused the festival to be cancelled in 2020 and 2021.

Lineups

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

}

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

References

External links

Sweden Rock Festival – official website

Sweden Rock Festival – Russian website, руcскоязычный сайт о фестивале– TheClosedCircle for Sweden Rock 2015
{{Coord missing, Sweden Heavy metal festivals in Sweden Rock festivals in Sweden Music festivals established in 1992 Summer in Sweden June Culture of Blekinge County Sölvesborg Municipality 1992 establishments in Sweden 20th-century establishments in Blekinge County