UPBEAT strengthens the industry ethos of sustainability
via its Future Festival Award.
UPBEAT created the Future Festival Award to strengthen the industry ethos of sustainability. The prize is handed to festivals rooted in heritage, seizing the present while not burdening the future, in alignment with UPBEAT’s criteria. This year Music Meeting Festival from the Netherlands was collectively deemed the best representative of UPBEAT’s mission, while boasting a fabulously rich program.
A jury of industry experts: Martyna van Nieuwland – UPBEAT’s sustainability specialist; Balázs Weyer – Hangvető/ UPBEAT / Budapest Ritmo and Zarina Prvasevda – UPBEAT Best New Talent Award winner of 2023, selects nominees, while UPBEAT members can each cast a vote to choose the winner. Festivals based in Europe, actively working on reducing carbon emissions, promoting social inclusion and engaging with our shared heritage may be nominated for the award.
The winner receives accreditation to WOMEX with additional travel and accommodation support and also delegate registration for 2 more UPBEAT partner festivals of choice. By winning the award, Music Meeting Festival also joins UPBEAT network as an associate partner.
Cutting right across styles, genres and cultures, Music Meeting Festival has been providing a platform for over 35 years for the world’s best artists: musicians who have rarely or never performed in the Netherlands, with new projects or in special line-ups. During the festival weekend, Park Brakkenstein and De Lindenberg in Nijmegen are traditionally the setting for musical encounters, with over thirty concerts spread over three days.
The first edition of Music Meeting took place in 1985. Back then the festival was called the ‘1st Multicultural Dance and Improvised Music Meeting’, which soon became popularly known as ‘Music Meeting’. Up until 2003, Music Meeting took place in the Concertgebouw de Vereeniging and Stadsschouwburg Nijmegen. Since 2004, Music Meeting has taken place in the historical Park Brakkenstein, and the label ‘Festival’ has been added to the name. Music Meeting now enjoys a history that stretches back over 35 years, with a rich line-up of artists from all corners of the globe. In 2024, the festival headed in a new direction with the addition of an extraordinary indoor program at De Lindenberg.
Ruhnu Island Violin Festival in Estonia was born out of love for a small community on an 11 km2 island in the Baltic sea. Ruhnu Violin Festival celebrates and revives the lost traditions and music of Ruhnu island, but not only. It is a place in time and space where traditional violin playing is honored from across cultural borders to teach each other to enjoy music in its purest form, often on stages built by nature itself.
Balkan Trafik is one, if not the last, of the few festivals in Belgium that strives to promote musical diversity outside the mainstream. It is the only festival in our geographic area (including our neighboring countries) that mainly programs artists from the Southeast European region. An aspect of the festival that is very important for artists from the ‘Balkan’ region, who often go unnoticed, is the enormous amount of communication work we offer to the groups.
The HUDBA SVETA ŽILINA Festival, by focusing on non-mainstream music genres and workshops, is unique and original not only in the city of Žilina, but also in the wider area. A goal from the very begginig of the festival is to bring professional artists, never played in Slovakia before, and connect them with local musicans and create cooperations not only for the Festival, but also for future cooperations.
The Balkan ethno-fusion festival “Lokum Fest-music and tradition” was created in the heart of the old Bitola Turkish bazaar in Bitola, a cultural-historical monument from the 15th century, taking the custom of welcoming the neighbor and the well-wisher with Turkish delight (Lokum) and coffee as a light motive for the meeting between people, cultures and their music that have mixed in a special amalgam.
