The festival summer in Europe is coming to an end. In the third year of the full-scale invasion, support for Ukraine in the European music industry remains high, and more and more European festivals are joining in to help by directing their social action and proceeds to the initiative of the Ukrainian Association of Music Events UAME – Music Saves Ukraine.
Sadly this support has yet to be evidenced from UK festivals. In 2025 let’s get the UK industry involved.
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.
How does it work? How are Ukrainian artists getting to the international stages? And how much was raised for Ukraine? Find out below.
This year, the Music Saves Ukraine team visited the following festivals:
Electrum Up To Date Festival (Bialystok, Poland), Provinssi (Seinäjoki, Finland), Open’er (Gdynia, Poland), Pohoda (Trencin, Slovakia), DAS FEST (Karlsruhe, Germany), ARTmania (Sibiu, Romania), Sziget (Budapest, Hungary), Lowlands (Netherlands), as well as three big shows of the German punk rock band Die Ärzte (Berlin, Germany). At these events, the team set up a special info tent, which included a photo exhibition of the Liberov family, up-to-date information on the situation in Ukraine and how people can help, 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 5 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. 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. 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,’ says Mariana Mokrynska, head of the Music Saves Ukraine initiative.
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, which is very popular in Europe, charity merchandise sales and collected donations from people on the guest lists and accreditation. Thus, together with the festivals mentioned above, we raised more than €60,000. However, this result is incomplete, and we are excited to share the final results later.
Ukrainian music was heard at many festivals this Summer! One of the missions of UAME and the Music Saves Ukraine initiative is to spread and promote Ukrainian music abroad! We help European festivals to book Ukrainian artists and help foreign audiences discover Ukrainian talent. This summer, we helped bring Ukrainian artists to the following stages:
Pohoda Festival (Slovakia) – Lucas Bird.
Positivus (Latvia) – OTOY, Love’n’joy
66 hodin (Slovakia) – Nina Eba, Morwan.
Sziget (Hungary) – Monoconda, OTOY.
Hoffest (Germany) – Mavka.
Superbloom (Germany) – Postman.
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, which DIY was proud to be part of. In March 2024, 12 influential cultural figures from Europe, including festival directors and promoters, came to Kyiv. After their trip to Ukraine, they began to actively book Ukrainian artists and implement various fundraising initiatives in their respective regions. The UAME team plans to attract the attention of even more people in the European music industry and introduce them to Ukrainian realities and Ukrainian music.
Watch the documentary to see how it happened in the spring of 2024:
DIY is one of the Music Saves Ukraine ambassadors and would welcome the opportunity to discuss how the UK festival and music industry can help join this critical helpline for the people of Ukraine.
Please help distribute the information flyer to your own networks
If you’d like more information on how to help, visit their website https://musicsavesua.com/ and follow them on social media https://www.facebook.com/musicsavesua
Or you can donate directly from the UAME website.
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. The contents of this project are the sole responsibility of Pact and its implementing partners and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
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