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Which roads in Copenhagen are closed this week for the Distortion festival?

Is it the highlight of your year or a bit of an inconvenience? Here's a quick guide to which streets in Copenhagen will be closed for this week's Distortion street festival.

Published: 1 June 2023 11:04 CEST

Which roads in Copenhagen are closed this week for the Distortion festival?

Young Danes getting ready to party at the start of Copenhagen's Distortion festival on Wednesday night. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

Thursday.

After its grand launch on Langebro on Wednesday evening, the festival takes over Vesterbro on Thursday. There will also be a smaller Distortion X event around Copenhagen Town Hall. This means a big chunk of Vesterbro is off limits to cars and also arguably to any pedestrians not wanting to be swept up in the revelry.

The car free area takes in everything above the main railway track between Copenhagen Central Station and Carlsberg Station, to the east of Enghavevej, and is then bordered at the top by Frederikstadsgade, Matthæusgade, Absolonsgade and Eskilsgade, and Halmtorvet. The meatpacking district is not off limits to cars, but is likely to be swept up in the partying.

The parking ban came into effect at 11pm on Wednesday evening, according to the festival organisers’ information sheet (Danish), and will not be completely removed until 7am on Friday.

Any cars that do not comply with a parking ban will be removed by the police, with the car’s owner then having to pay the cost.

Anyone with a residents’ parking license for the area covered, will have their licence automatically extended to Valby and Indre By areas, so they can park their cars there instead.

The street party proper starts at 4pm and continues until 10pm.

You can find out more by downloading the official festival app here (Android) or here (Apple)

A big chunk of Vesterbro is off limits to cars on Thursday while the festival takes place. Graphic: Distortion

Around the Radhuspladsen Square in front of Copenhagen Town hall, the Vester Voldgade street between Lavendelstræde and the Strøget shopping street will be closed to traffic between May 29th and June 3rd.

You can find more details here (Danish).

Friday

On Friday and Saturday the party takes over the Refshaleøen peninsular, which due to the relatively low level of inhabitants means a lot less disruption.

Refshalevej, the road into the peninsular, will be closed to private car traffic between 5pm and midnight, from the point at which it passes Vandflyverhangaren, the former aircraft hanger that has been converted into a modern office building. The cordon will be manned and people on business or residential errands will still be able to drive in and out.

The partying on Refshaleøen will be limited to two areas on the peninsular. Photo: Distortion

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Amsterdam

Amsterdam has long been trying to clean up a reputation for rowdy stag parties, drugs and sex that has been partly blamed on an influx of around 20 million visitors a year.

In 2023 it launched an online campaign aimed at discouraging young British men from travelling to Amsterdam to get high or very drunk, telling them in typically blunt Dutch fashion to “stay away” or risk arrest.

Amsterdam also announced last week a ban on new hotels and that it would halve the number of river cruise ships in the city within five years.

It also decided last year to ban smoking cannabis on the streets of the red-light district.

Hallstatt and Salzburg in Austria

The tiny village of Hallstatt, a hamlet just 750 people strong not far from Salzburg and bearing a striking resemblance to the fictional kingdom of Arendelle from Disney’s Frozen – last year caused furore when its residents erected a fence at its famous vista to deter selfie-seekers. After a social media backlash, the village – which is also a UNESCO heritage site – removed the fence, but signs remind visitors to enjoy the site quietly.

Residents were also protesting in favour of tourism curbs in the village, which gets as many as 10,000 visitors a day in high season. They want to limit the numbers and ban tour buses in the town after 5:00 p.m.

Not far from Hallstatt, the city made famous by classical music, Hollywood classics and Christmas songs, Salzburg, has also complained about massive tourism and the danger of being “overrun by mass tourists and day trippers”.

The city’s tourism boss Christine Schönhuber said: “We only want those who stay overnight”. The western Austrian city is yet to take any concrete measures, but it has floated ideas such as closing some streets to cars and putting restrictions on souvenir shops. The city is also considering closing the bus terminal at the city’s Mirabellplatz to day tripping companies – allowing only those transporting overnight guests.

Iseltwald, Switzerland

The quaint Swiss village of Iseltwald has been forced to limit the number of tourists after fans of a South Korean Netflix hit show flocked to the region in droves sparking a backlash from locals.

Iseltwald is often referred to as the pearl of Lake Brienz, and rightfully so. The fishing village is located on the left bank of the river and is one of the smallest communities in the canton of Bern – and locals would like to keep it that way.

A picture taken on June 2, 2023 shows the village of Iseltwald at the shore of Lake Brienz, in the Swiss Alps. Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

Dubrovnik

Croatia’s medieval walled city of Dubrovnik is one of Europe’s most overcrowded cities, with the flow of tourists sometimes making it impossible to walk inside the historic Old Town.

The jewel of the Adriatic has seen a huge surge in visitor numbers since scenes from the series “Game of Thrones” were filmed on its ramparts in 2011.

In 2023, the town of 41,000 people received 1.2 million tourists, below 2019’s record of 1.4 million.

In 2019 local authorities limited the number of cruise ship arrivals to two per day, with no more than 4,000 passengers each at a time.

They also launched an app that uses machine learning and weather forecasts to predict when the Old Town, a UNESCO world heritage site, will be busiest.