Norway’s biggest music festival, The Quart festival

The Quart festival is held in July in Kristiansand. Kristiansand is a beautiful City and I can strongly recommend a visit here when in Norway. It is the capital of West-Agder County, and by population, it is the fifth largest city of Norway.

Sometimes they call it Kristiansand S and of course the S stands for South, to distinguish it from Kristiansund what lies in the west of Norway.

Norway’s biggest music festival, The Quart festival, was discontinued in 2008 because of financial difficulties. It is back again in July 2009. The festival has taken place in Kristiansand every July since 1991.

This festival is well known for attracting international artists to Kristiansand each year as in addition to finding new young talents. The line-up for the revitalized the Festival 2009 includes world-famous stars, such as Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie, Black Eyed Peas, Marilyn Manson and Placebo.

There are festivals running throughout the year in Kristiansand. In April there is the very popular Children Film Festival and the Blues Festival in June. Kristiansand has an active music scene as well, the Wind Ensemble, the Chamber Orchestra and the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra all merged in 2003 and are very well know throughout Norway.

Concerts usually take place in Agder Theatre but when the new Concert Hall Kilden is finished in 2011 all big events will take place here.

Right in the centre of Kristiansand is the South Norway’s Art Museum, which is the second largest regional art museum in Norway.

Take a quick trip ;-)

Some information on travel

Kjevik Airport is located 12 km (7 mi) north-east of the city. SAS Norge runs 8 daily flights to Oslo, 6 to Bergen and 3 to Stavanger, as well as 3 daily flights to Copenhagen (Denmark) and a weekly flight to Alicante (Spain).

Norwegian runs 3 daily flights to Oslo. Norwegian is Norways lowcost airline. Visit www.norwegian.no

Planes from Dutch airline KLM depart twice daily for Amsterdam (Holland).

There are bus connections to the town centre for every arrival, both airport buses and local buses. The airport bus costs NOK80, NOK 120 return. Local buses are to the left as you exit. No 35 and 36 to city centre Kvadraturen is NOK 37 (Jun 08). Taxi to Kvadraturen is NOK280/350 in weekends.

Regional trains connect Kristiansand to other cities and towns along the Southern Railway Line (Sørlandsbanen). Up to 8 trains daily depart for Stavanger, while up to 6 daily trains leave for the country's capital, Oslo. The trip to Stavanger takes about 3 hours and the trip to Oslo between 4 1/2 to 5 hours. Trains both westwards towards Stavanger and eastwards to Oslo follow an inland route, meaning that travel to the towns along the coast is quite inconvenient by train. There are lots of nice forest views and rural settlements, though.

The train station is situated right next to the town centre, the ferry terminal, and the bus terminal

Quart and home