One of the biggest Lithuanian festivals "Galapagai" announced that this summer event is canceled due to the "restarted", the organizers of the big Lithuanian festivals claim that their participants have changed after the pandemic, so it is necessary to find new ways to attract people.
Henrikas Draugelis, the organizer of the city festival "MAMA vasara" says that music lovers in Lithuania and the world value comfort more, they no longer want to spend the night in tents, and Judita Bartoševičienė, the organizer of "Vilnius Mama Jazz" believes that people have grown tired of easily accessible good, quality music on the Internet, and at the festival they expect more activities than just music.
At that time, the organizer of the "Granatas" festival, Vaidas Zdancevičius, said that the audience of the country festivals had become younger.
"This is a one-day, city festival, and looking at foreign trends, other festivals, those where people are invited to spend the night in tents, have decreased, and those one-day festivals are becoming very popular, where various concerts are held throughout the day, and in those spaces you can have different to find attractions", said H. Draugelis, the organizer of "MAMA vasara" to BNS.
According to him, this one-day festival is currently booming.
"At least as far as I got to know other festivals that took place last summer, as far as I know, our festival was the only one that had an increase - about 10-15 percent, which means that it is becoming popular and that exactly what we are talking about is paying off." - said H. Draugel.
"Vilnius Mama Jazz" organizer J. Bartoševičienė believes that it is extremely important for festivals to change, listen to their audience and provide a high-quality service, because modern festival-goers have access to a lot of information and are able to choose what they like and what they don't.
"We now have social networks and people are spoiled by good music, the world has created so much good music and they can already choose," said J. Bartoševičienė.
She said that she noticed that not only the quality of the music is important to the customers, but also the activities after the concerts. Therefore, she started holding interviews with musicians at festivals, giving away various paraphernalia, holding free concerts before the festival.
"Now we have a listener of the festival, we have a refined audience and we have people who already trust the festival. This year a miracle happened - a quarter of the hall was bought without knowing any of the performers", said the organizer of "Vilnius Mama Jazz".
At that time, the organizer of the "Granatas" festival, V. Zdancevičius, said that the need for festivals with tents is still strong, but after the pandemic, younger people go to such festivals.
"We are doing well. (…) Festival goers have changed after covid, that group of people has become younger, because the older group of people needs comfort. Festivals that take place outside the city, that have tent cities, have a younger audience," he explained.
"Before covid, there was an audience of 26-29 (years old - BNS), that's the basis, (...) and after covid, it moved to the age of 20-25, and we put the program together for them, because they want and can live in tents, it's just fine for them experience, they are not tired of living in a tent," said the Granatų organizer.
Despite this, according to him, "Granatas" does not yet attract such visitor flows as it was before the pandemic.
"We are not yet (returned to the number of visitors before the pandemic - BNS) and I don't think we will be, because we did our biggest business in 2019, but the festival will certainly be bigger this year than last year or the year before," explained V. Zdancevičius.
"We grew organically until 2019, the first festival was in 2013, the euro was introduced in 2015, then we did not grow, and all the following years we grew faster and faster. (…) People come to the festival, they like it, they come again next year, they also bring some friends", he added.
Galapagos organizers announced in mid-May that this year's festival is being postponed to 2024. According to them, the problems arose due to several festivals taking place at the same time and the changed "festivalist", who needs to find new ways to interest him.
"Obviously, the pandemic has changed us all a lot, today's festival-goer is completely different than a few years ago, and we have to look for new concepts to keep you interested," Galapagos said on Facebook.
"Galapagos" was supposed to take place on July 26-28 - at the same time as the "Pomegranates" and "MAMA summer" festivals.
The author is Goda Vileikytė
