In late June, we headed to Tuska festival in Helsinki, Finland. A festival less known along our sides in Belgium, even though you are less than 2.5 hours away by plane.
Since 1998, the festival has been held first at Helsinki's Kaisaniemi Park, then in Suvilahti since 2011. Then, the festival has gone from strength to strength! But he never lost his aim. The philosophy of the festival is a young target audience and not crowded. Everyone should be able to have a place to stand. They also offer a wide variety of food stalls, so there is definitely something for everyone. All that works, because this year the capacity was increased from 21000 to 23000 visitors and it sold out!
Tuska is a city festival (so camping is not possible), and takes place on an industrial site. This one that the festival is known for is the DNA of the festival, but developers want to reallocate the site so Tuska would have to move and that is not good news. Changing locations means a 5-to-8-year struggle for a festival to get back on track.
Renovation plans in the area have been changed many times because of the economic situation, among other things. This probably causes investors to take a wait-and-see attitude, so it remains unsure how long Tuska will be able to continue here. The works have been postponed again, so Tuska 2025 could certainly continue next year.
During the festival we were able to participate in a press tour followed by a Q&A by Eeka Mäkynen, festival director himself. We were allowed to visit the main stage backstage and also go onstage for a moment (on the side) during the performance of the band Vola.
The main questions asked during the Q&A were:
The 2nd outdoor stage was much bigger. What was the reason? Eeka Mäkynen : Because of the upscale of the festival, all visitors to the mainstage should be able to find a place at 1 of the 2 other stages. This fits into the philosophy of 'not crowded'. On the other hand, there are also not too many stages available. So, you don't have much choice. Other festivals are already building up at the same time, so you can't use the same equipment.
There is a new festival in the same city: Hellsinki metal festival (editor's note: This festival has been held since 2023 during August) How do you guys look at that? They have inherited what Tuska started and musically that is good news, because Tuska typically goes for a younger audience. The audience is not getting older by the year like at other festivals. At Tuska last year, 40% were newcomers aged 25 to 34. Thanks to Hellsinki metal festival, those who no longer go to Tuska can now go somewhere else too.Attracting the young audience was a new direction we took and it worked well: records were broken last year. That's also the direction we want to continue in.
Do you have any more data on your visitors? Of course. Of the queries we do, 50% of them are filling out, so that gives a very reliable picture. It's 140 questions so quite a long survey.And it's good that people do that, because they know we listen to our fans, their opinion on things. The questions are about age, where they come from, how they come, what do they think about our services, partners, sponsors. Who they are themselves, what they spend their money on, what new bands they listen to and their professional situation. Often they have high positions with monthly incomes that are €1000 higher than the average.