We Asked Loppen How Copenhagen's Music Industry Changed Over Four Decades

Baby Woodrose at Loppen. Photo by Morten Aagaard Krogh.

Loppen in Christiania is one of Copenhagen’s most famous and celebrated music venues. It first opened its doors as a jazz club, back in 1973, when the freetown Christiania was only two years old. Things have changed radically since then. Loppen is no longer a jazz club, but a broadly oriented venue. These days, that broad orientation is necessary to keep its head above water in lieu of tough competition from Copenhagen’s booming live music scene.

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When we say it’s tough competition, we really mean it. Copenhagen now boasts an International reputation for a dense yet thriving underground scene of clubs, venues and dance nights. Recent years have seen multiple underground scenes in Copenhagen rising to prominence, thanks to the groups of musicians around Iceage originally leading the way. Those bands essentially turned Copenhagen into an International darling for forward-thinking music—which also raised expectations for whatever comes out of Copenhagen, music-wise. The result? A tangible momentum to Copenhagen’s live music scene but also a pressure on the local venues of Copenhagen to do their parts: give local talent platforms to thrive, establish Copenhagen’s festival culture and pull in International talent, too. It’s not like Copenhagen’s venues split up those responsibilities, either. If you take a look at the types of bookings made by the more established venues like Culture Box or VEGA as well as the more niche ones like Drone or Mayhem, most of Copenhagen’s venues seem focused on promoting both local and International talent—all under one roof. With that kind of bustling competition to achieve the same goals, how’s a venue supposed to stay afloat?

That’s why we got in touch with Loppen’s booker, Jasper Jensen. He’s worked at Loppen for about 20 years now, starting out in the good ol’ days when you could just focus on promoting one music genre and get away with it. Like in the good ol’ days, though, Loppen is still run by a big base of volunteers—a flat organization with weekly democratic, collective meetings. Apart from them, Loppen only employs three people—Jensen being one of them. This keeps expenses low and spurs a community feeling, but also puts pressure on a small number of people to make things work now that the rules of the music industry are different. Considering this, we thought we’d ask Jensen how Copenhagen’s changed, how Loppen’s changed with it and how you have to think as a booker in 2015.

The Dogs at Loppen. Photo by Lene Bergersen.

Noisey: The music industry in Copenhagen has evolved quite a bit since Loppen first opened its doors. How have those changes affected Loppen?
Jasper Jensen: The competition has increased, big time. It has changed the way we book bands: we still use booking agents, but now it makes more sense to be in contact with the bands directly as well as speak with a lot DIY initiatives. We have to try to come up with new forms of concerts and of course, hang on to people we have been working with for years.

What do you mean by the competition increasing?
10-15 years ago—what festivals did we have in Copenhagen? Now, there’s Distortion, Strøm, Trailerpark, Copenhell, Vanguard… it’s really intensified. The July festivals don’t matter that much to us because we’re closed anyway. It used to be like this: you’d close down a week before Roskilde when you started noticing it was getting difficult to get people to go to shows. Then, we’d open up again in the beginning of August. That window has been pushed a little both ways now.

So basically, festivals are taking away your audience?
Well, in general, June is a really tricky month to get people in the doors. That comes down to a change in culture in people’s habits and preferences. Copenhagen has become a city where you go out: there’s a certain Mediterranean vibe to it now. I sound like a sociologist, but you can see it and feel it. Look at Dronning Louise’s Bridge now: it turns into a party the minute there’s a single ray of sunlight. Ten years ago, it just wasn’t like that. So now, especially in the summertime, it’s hard to attract that many people. In short, there are plenty of challenges from many sides.

So would you say that the live music scene is suffering more than it was four decades ago?
No, the live music scene is doing well despite expectations. For instance, when Northside and Tinderbox arrived on the festival scene, people said that it would be the end of Roskilde, but that didn’t happen. The festivals in Jutland were the most nervous about it and they haven’t gone down. Not yet, anyway… Obviously it’s possible that the bubble is going to burst at some point. Can Denmark handle another festival of that size? I think we’ve reached that point now.

Chorus Grant at Loppen. Photo by Thilde Mørup Christensen.

Since you’re fully volunteer-run, is hanging on to them a challenge, too? You have to keep momentum going for them when they could potentially go somewhere else and get paid to work.
The volunteers are heavily involved in all types of decisions, so they have a sense of ownership in the venue. Everybody can suggest bands it would be cool to have play, or PR strategies, or the kind of beer we sell—we’re a true collective.

That collective spirit makes sense considering you’re located in Christiania. Does that location pose a challenge, though? It must make the city council or the police keep a closer eye on you than on other venues.
No, not really. It’s easier today than it was in the past because Christiania’s businesses are all legal now. Of course, the “green light district” businesses are illegal, but police know the different between pusher street and the rest of Christiania. The difficulty comes from the pushers: because they’re afraid of the police driving into Christiania, they’ve made it difficult to drive into the area. Together with the large number of parked cars from all the customers, it gives us some trouble getting the bands into the venue. That’s it, though.

Speaking of bands, is there a strategy behind your booking and music profile?
We’ve always been good at signing bands just before their big breaks, or ideally have them play here just when they’ve had that break… I remember Franz Ferdinand especially. We booked them for something like 1000 euros. When you book bands, you usually book them three or four months before. In that time period sometimes you’re lucky to have that hit.

SNOT at Loppen. Photo by Lene Bergersen.

With the recent influx of new live music venues in Copenhagen, do you find yourself fighting each other over bands and bookings?
When it comes to places like Ideal Bar, Beta [2300] and Huset, that’s when it starts overlapping a bit. It’s a crowded field, but I do think we supplement each other quite well in Copenhagen. A lot of the bands are booked through booking agencies who lay their cards on the table and are actually quite nice.
Nobody is interested in a bidding war and we communicate well amongst each other about what bids have been made. The agents are free to pick where they’d prefer to place their show. The foreign agents know the venues here and that’s an advantage for us, too. We’ve been here for many years: people know us and know what kind of place Loppen is. It’s a place a lot of bands really want to play because it’s intimate and you’re close to the audience.

Do bands specifically request playing at Loppen?
Oh yes, definitely, but I think other venues get that too. Some bands just prefer playing at Lille Vega, for instance. The good thing about Loppen is that if there are 50-100 people at the show it doesn’t necessarily feel empty. It might feel empty at Lille Vega perhaps when it thins out 10 rows down. Here, the audience sort of embraces the stage, you know? A band will still leave feeling like it was a pretty okay night. The stage creates that effect.
Our location certainly doesn’t make matters worse, either. A lot of bands like to be able to go and get a joint after a gig.

Despite this increased competition, you sound hopeful and confident. What justifies the optimism?
Well, there are more bands to choose from today than there were in the past. I think there are more kids playing music… Just look at the whole psych-scene. Where did that come from? The electronic scene has it too. There’s a burst of DJs and new talents. It’s a similar thing with foreign bands, too. For foreign bands, it’s become easier to tour and travel around. American bands love Europe and actually make more money over here than at home where competition is even tougher. So, there are more bands in all genres to choose from and the audience has also become more interested in going out and experiencing live music. That said, it goes back to what I said about the bubble bursting. If a new venue were to arrive in Copenhagen and give it a shot as well, would that be one too many for the city to handle?

Thanks, Jasper.