Marbella Open Air Festival is the biggest music festival in New Shetland. The festival usually features a line-up consisting of mostly local rock and pop bands as well as various electronic music acts, attracting an estimated 80.000 visitors every year. The festival is held every year in the second weekend of June at Kings Park. Besides music, a variety of activities are held, such as open-air theater, lectures, workshops, sporting activities and a market.
The festival was held in 2003 for the first time, and returned every year without exceptions. The amount of visitors grew from 30,000 attending the first edition to 80,000 in 2011. In 2005 the festival organizers experienced that both a meager line-up and bad weather led to dissappointing visitor numbers, and therefore they attracted bands from abroad for the 2006 edition. This edition featured a line-up that was much more diverse. A couple of American investors made another edition of this size possible in 2007. In this year the open-air theater and a second stage were added to the festival, increasing the visitor number to an all time high of 96,000 visitors.
The 2007 edition also brought nationwide broadcast TV coverage of the event. As of 2009, the festival is covered by XFM Marbella and C1TV.
2011 Edition[]
The 2011 Edition featured Patrol, Neon Plenty, Fount of Abundance, Citizen & The Addicts, Hurricane John, Dunbeggars, C and Xister, Theresa Nicholson, Framed Lotus, Slitzweitz Gamelan, Astronaughty, Ackroyd, The Harpsichords Homesickness Demand, Single Twins, Charlietango and Magic Doors.