ESBJERG, DENMARK (vip-booking) – Immediately after Esbjerg Municipality and Musikhuset Esbjerg reached an agreement at the end of May for Musikhuset to take over the Danish venue Tobakken, the search for a booker for the venue began. Musikhuset Esbjerg can now announce that a unanimous hiring committee has chosen 34-year-old Sune Rasmussen, who will start the position after the summer break.
34-year-old Sune Rasmussen will set the artistic direction for Tobakken and make the Esbjerg venue one of the country’s largest and most influential. Rasmussen comes to Tobakken after six successful years as a venue manager at Tøjhuset in Fredericia.
“Sune Rasmussen has, despite his age, extensive experience in the music industry and a large and solid network, both nationally and locally. He is well-liked, respected, strategic, and development-oriented and has delivered excellent results at Tøjhuset. There is no doubt that he is the right person to set the artistic direction for Tobakken,” says the director of Musikhuset Esbjerg and Tobakken, Torben Seldrup.
Rasmussen started at 28 in 2018 as the daily manager and booker at the Tøjhuset venue in Fredericia. There, he developed good cooperation with volunteer organizers and local music associations, ensuring that the venue’s annual visitor numbers increased from about 14,000 to three times that today, partly thanks to the opening of the Eksercerhuset venue, which Rasmussen has also led since 2021.
Rasmussen seeks to present the most prominent Danish artists and international names while fostering niche, quirky, and new acts. It is crucial that the venue has strong local roots.
“My main focus will initially be establishing good contact with local associations. Many in Esbjerg have strong opinions and great love for Tobakken, and we need to engage with them. The starting point will be local, and then we can look at booking national and international artists,” says Rasmussen.
For Rasmussen, taking the new job at Tobakken feels like coming home. He has been involved with the venue his entire life, first as a performer when he was part of the Ribe Rock Choir as a child, later as an audience member, and from 2009 to 2017 as an employee. He began as an apprentice event coordinator and, during his eight years at Tobakken, planned and executed numerous concerts, worked with fundraising and marketing, and led De Studerendes Hus, now known as Kanten.
“I applied for the booker position and accepted it because it`s fantastic to have the opportunity to help get Tobakken back on its feet. Continue its good traditions and create new, exciting things at the venue. Esbjerg is a city with a great love for rhythmic music, and a large audience is eager to enjoy fantastic concert experiences again. Tobakken is a place that brings joy to everyone involved – both the artists and the audience. That’s why I’m really looking forward to starting at the new Tobakken,” says Rasmussen.
Rasmussen will start his position as a booker at Tobakken on September 1. However, he has been on Director Seldrup’s radar for many years.
“I really noticed Sune when Musikhuset and the former Tobakken together organized Slipknot in Blue Water Dokken in 2016. This young man was running around the venue pulling the strings, and I thought, ‘Okay, here’s a young man who has his act together and is going to go far,’” says Seldrup.
