Venue:
Room 2, 1st Floor, Novotel London Bridge
September 10, 2025
12:00
-
12:45
Presented by: YOUROPE and Take A Stand
In a world where ideologies collide, narratives shape reality, and “culture war” is the buzzword of the day - where do music festivals stand?
How do they hold their ground and nourish their values of cultural exchange, diversity, and openness in an increasingly polarised climate?
Join festival producers from across Europe as they share how they stay true to their vision, protect their spaces from backlash, and translate their beliefs into line-ups and festival experiences that matter.
Conversations will cover resilience, responsibility and the power of the stage to keep the conversation open.
IQ Magazine
A journalist for over 20 years, James has spent more than 12 years covering the live music industry.
James is IQ magazine’s Special Projects Editor, in charge of publications such as the European Festival Report, Global Promoters Report, International Ticketing Report and others.
He is the editor of the Barbican’s monthly Guide magazine, and writes on culture for a variety of publications. As a regular presenter James has appeared at conferences such as the ILMC, Canadian Music Week, MIDEM and The Great Escape, and appeared on the BBC, France 24, ITV and more.
He is former Managing Director of the UK and European Festival Awards.
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Les Eurockéennes
I’m doing the booking the festival programming for "Les Eurockéennes" since the 2001 edition.
The festival exists since 1989 and takes place on the first weekend of July (4 days) in Belfort, France. I’m also in charge of a project called "Operation Iceberg" (Franco-Swiss program to help emerging music groups in these two countries) and I’m doing the booking for a big electro event around Belfort in Autumn called “En residence Secondaire”.
Pohoda Festival
Michal Kaščák is a promoter and musician. In 1997 he founded Pohoda festival, since then he is its director, curator, and booker.
Pohoda is an art festival where alternative, indie, electronic, punk, and world music meets classical music, along with literature, dance, visual arts, film, NGO´s and theatre. In addition to the festival, the Pohoda team organises also concerts and small festivals, such as the Doma dobre festival for people without home, series of antitotalitarian concerts in 120+ clubs around Slovakia Slovenska krcma (Slovak Pub) or pro LGBTI+ series of events in 250+ places Slovenska Teplaren, Concerts for Ukraine,..
Pohoda festival is acitve supporter of Music Saves UA, member of Yourope and its initiatives such as Take a Stand and YES Group and won The Green Operation Award, Take a stand Award, The Award for Excellence and Passion and Best Medium Size Festival Award at European Festival Awards.
Derek Robertson of Drowned in Sound wrote about Pohoda: “The organization is superb. Compared to UK festivals this is Utopia. In fact, it’s one of the most well-behaved festival crowds I have ever witnessed...”.
Valley of Arts Festival
Natália Oszkó-Jakab is the Festival Director of the Valley of Arts Festival (Művészetek Völgye) since 2013, the oldest, and greatest multi-art festival in Hungary, founded in 1989. She is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Arts for Rural Development Foundation.
Natália started at the Palace of Arts in 2005. She spent two years (2011-13) at an international organisation. As a cultural diplomat, she was leading the Liszt Institute Brussels in 2022-2023 while leading her foundations and festivals.
She is founder of the Music Hungary Associations and now the Festival Department leader. In 2021 she founded Hungarian Tourism Programme Foundation which became the EFFE Hungarian Hub since Autumn 2023.
Through Startup Safari Budapest festival she is fostering collaboration in between the cultural and innovation sector. Since May 2024 Natalia has been a board member of the European Festival Association and an ELSI Board member of EIT Culture and Creativity KIC.
