Music Saves Ukraine shares Summer Festival Tour results

Music Saves Ukraine has shared the results of its summer tour around European festivals.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the team has worked with 40 festivals and numerous large-scale music events. During this time, the initiative has raised over €555,000 for humanitarian needs in Ukraine.

This year, the team visited festivals including Electrum Up To Date Festival (Poland), Provinssi (Finland), Open’er (Poland), Pohoda (Slovakia), DAS FEST (Germany), ARTmania (Romania), Sziget (Hungary), Lowlands (Netherlands), as well as three big shows of the German punk rock band Die Ärzte (Germany).

The team’s presence at events included an information tent which included a photo exhibition of the Liberov family, up-to-date information on the situation in Ukraine, and banners with the names of Ukrainian artists who are fighting and who gave their lives in the struggle for freedom.

Other activities included participation in panel discussions about the war and culture in Ukraine and five screenings of the documentary Music Ambassadors Tour 2024. At every festival, people could buy charity merchandise, all proceeds from which go to humanitarian aid in Ukraine.

“Our team is pleased that the level of interest in Ukraine and Ukrainian music in the third year of the full-scale invasion remains high,” says Mariana Mokrynska, head of the Music Saves Ukraine initiative.

“This is evidenced by the number of festivals that are willing to cooperate with us and invite Ukrainian artists to their stages. Festivals like Sziget in Hungary and Pohoda in Slovakia kept demonstrating their unwavering support of Ukraine. This is reflected in the number of Ukrainian artists at these festivals and numerous actions they employ to help.

“[We are] pleased that the level of interest in Ukraine and Ukrainian music in the third year of the full-scale invasion remains high”

“This season was also notable because we collaborated with Germany’s largest punk rock band, Die Ärzte, which gathered more than 180,000 people in the centre of Berlin for three days in a row, and the team of artists organised a festival for Ukrainian refugees living in the event area (Tempelhof, where the Tempohomes refugee camp is located). They also sent charitable contributions from the invitations to our initiative. However, we hope that next year the reason for our visit to European festivals will change.”

Festivals such as Pinkpop (Netherlands), OpenAir St. Gallen (Switzerland), Les Eurokeennes de Belfort (France), Festival 66 hodin (Slovakia), Positivus (Latvia), Summer Sound Festival (Latvia), Superbloom (Germany) have organised fundraising initiatives on their own, including eco-initiatives for bottle and can recycling, cup deposit fundraising, charity merchandise sales and collected donations from people on the guest lists and accreditation. These initiatives have so far raised more than €60,000 and counting.

Music Saves Ukraine also helped European festivals book Ukrainian artists such as Lucas Bird (at Pohoda Festival), OTOY and Love’n’joy (Positivus), Nina Eba and Morwan (66 hodin), Monoconda and OTOY (Sziget), Mavka (Hoffest) and Postman (Superbloom).

The Hungarian festival Sziget became a record-breaker in terms of booking Ukrainian artists. As a result, 15 Ukrainian artists—mimes, theatre artists, DJs, and singers — were presented at the event over six days.

Many collaborations have been implemented thanks to the Music Ambassadors Tour 2024 project. In March 2024, 12 influential cultural figures from Europe, including festival directors and promoters, visited Kyiv.

After their trip to Ukraine, they began to actively book Ukrainian artists and implement various fundraising initiatives in their respective regions.

This project is presented by the Ukrainian Association of Music Events under the USAID/ENGAGE activity, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Pact.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.