Rakrakan Festival

The tradition & historical record

Rakrakan Festival is an annual music and arts festival in the Philippines produced by rock music news website and internet radio station Rakista Radio (formerly Rakista.com). Aiming to be the biggest OPM gathering in the Philippines, the festival consists of more than 120 OPM acts in different genres, particularly from rock, hip hop, and indie among others. Held in every first quarter of the year, Rakrakan Festival entertains its attendees with not only just live music, but also a purely local merchandise bazaar, food stalls, skateboarding exhibitions, live art installations and exhibitions, and more. ¹

Starting off with only 50 bands, Rakrakan Festival 2013 with the theme "Rock ‘Til You Drop" kicked off on December 21, 2013, as Rakista Radio ambitioned the rock community to be seen by a wider audience. Two stages—the Move and Mosh Stage—were set up at the Coral Way Open Parking in Pasay. Their goal for OPM support was met after an audience estimate of 10,000 attendees. ¹

Following their first successful year of gathering the country's music community, they proceeded with Rakrakan Festival 2014 held in the Globe Circuit Events Ground in Makati. Although maintaining the similar theme "Rock ‘Til You Drop", the organizers have expanded the festival's amenities by adding 20 more artists and one more stage—now with a total of 70 bands and three stages: the Move, Mosh, and Groove Stage. ¹

Rakrakan Festival 2015 still bore the same theme, "Rock ‘Til You Drop", with the same number of artists and stages, and in the same venue as before. Initially, it was scheduled on December 19, 2015, but due to two simultaneous tropical depressions—Onyok and Nona—which hit the country in the same month, Rakrakan Festival 2015 was rescheduled a month later to January 16, 2016. It was also in this year where Rakrakan Festival introduced their first street art exhibition. ¹

OPM Against Drugs was the festival's official theme for 2017 and was held at the Mall of Asia Concert Grounds in Pasay on January 14, 2017. In this year, Rakrakan Festival leveled up as they have invited 100 local acts and added 2 more stages than the usual: the Indie and Slam Stage. The festival was also attended by notable public officials from the Philippine National Police. However, problems arose just a few days before the event as some of the acts backed out from the lineup due to various reasons, most of which includes a stance against President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war campaign. ¹

Come February 24, 2018, Rakrakan Festival moved to the Aseana City Concert Grounds in Parañaque City, bearing the theme "Pinoy Muna!"'—taking a stand for nationalistic pride. Due to the tremendous amount of attendees in the previous Rakrakan Festivals and the demand for a bigger lineup, the organizing team decided to take one step higher and added 20 more main artists to the roster and one brand-new stage: the Tropa Center Stage, which paved the way for mainstream pop, R&B, and hiphop artists to be included in what seems to be just branded as a regular rock festival. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Rakrakan Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Rakrakan Festival is annual music festival by Rakista Radio, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²