Paléo Festival


The Paléo Festival de Nyon, usually just called Paléo, is an annual rock festival held in Nyon, Switzerland. It started in a small way in 1976 as the Nyon Folk Festival. The first one was held in the village hall in Nyon. From 1977 until 1989, it was held at Colovray, Nyon, by Lake Geneva and had only two stages, but today it is one of the major open-air music festivals in mainland Europe and the biggest in Switzerland. Today the event has grown to include international artists. In 1990, it moved to its current location, at the Plaine de l'Asse, accessible either by walking, bus or the Chemin de fer Nyon-St-Cergue-Morez narrow-gauge railway.
The festival lasts six days at the end of July, from Tuesday to Sunday, and the final main stage concert is preceded by a great firework display with music.
As of 2005, 3.5 million spectators and 2500 artists had been part of the Paléo Festival.

Stages

The Paléo features six stages:
Since 2003, the Paléo has introduced Le Village du Monde section, which is a space reserved for an invited region of the world. This place offers the region's culture and food. It also includes Le Dôme which shows only artists from the invited region.
280,000 visitors and over 5,000 staff participated in the 2015 event.

Tickets

Tickets can be purchased on the .
Special offers are available usually as early as November of the year preceding the next Paléo festival with discounted all-week passes. Later in Spring the official programme is published and the second, slightly less discounted tickets are available. They are often sold out very quickly. In the months preceding the festival more tickets are sold at full price.
To fight black-market ticket sales, 1500 one-day tickets are held up to be sold the same day as their validity date and can be purchased online.
The lineup used to be revealed on a late April Wednesday at noon, following which, both tickets and passes would sell out within days. From 2008 onwards, the lineup is unveiled one week prior to the sale, giving people plenty of time to make up their mind and thus rushing them online to get their tickets one week later. In 2009, all 280,000 tickets and passes were sold in a record one-and-a-half hours.

Transportation

There are a lot of ways to access the festival, whether by special trains and buses, by car, by bike, or walking.

Yearly summary

1997

Invited artists:
For a full list see the .

1998

Invited artists:
For a full list see the .

1999

Invited artists:
For a full list see the .

2000

Invited artists:
For a full list see the .

2001

Invited artists:
For a full list see the .

2002

Invited artists:
For a full list see the .

2003

Invited artists:
For a full list see the .
This year saw the first Village du Monde. Africa was invited with Cameroon, Nigeria and other countries from that continent.

2004

Invited artists:
Latin America was invited at the Village du Monde. Specifically Venezuela, Colombia, Equator, Peru and Mexico among others.
For a full list see the .

2005

In 2005, the following world-renowned artists participated at the Paléo :
That year was considered very successful with a cool but clear weather for most the week.
Asia was the region invited to the Village du Monde including China, Tibet, Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand and Japan.
For a full list see the .

2006

Paléo took place from 18 to 23 July 2006 with the following artists:
Eastern Europe hosted the Village du Monde.
For a full list see the .

2007

For a full list see the .

2008

REM headlined the Sunday night.
For a full list see the .

2009

2009 edition of Paléo took place from the 21 to 26 July 2009. Below list includes some of the musicians who performed during the concert:
India was the region invited to the Village du Monde.
For a full list see the .

2010

In 2010, the festival was held from July 20 to July the 24th. Some of the performing artists included:
The Motto for the Village du Monde was Southern Africa.
For a full list see the .

2011

The 2011 edition of the Paléo Festival took place from Tuesday, July the 19th to Sunday, July the 24th. The following list includes some of the acts that were confirmed on the 5th of April:
The Motto for the Village du Monde was the Caribbean.
For a full list see the .

2012

17 July

23 July
24 July
25 July
26 July
27 July
28 July