Flow Festival takes over Helsinki next weekend

A three day celebration of music, food and art fills the historic industrial complex of Suvilahti on August 12–14. Tickets are selling at a record-breaking pace, and some of the ticket types are fully booked. 1-day tickets and 2-day tickets for Friday and Sunday are still available. The number of international guests is expected to be bigger than ever.

Located in Helsinki’s Suvilahti, Flow Festival presents yet again a wide array of music from old school legends to intriguing newcomers. This year’s line-up includes e.g. Sia, New Order, Massive Attack & Young Fathers, Iggy Pop, Anohni, The Last Shadow Puppets, Jamie xx, M83, Chvrches, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Stormzy, Descendents, Four Tet, Hercules & Love Affair and over a hundred other acts.

In addition to the big stages, gigs are also held at small, atmospheric venues. The Bright Balloon 360° stage, itself a trademark to the festival, will host e.g. Yemenite and Ghanaian music and top-notch jazz. The popular stage seats twice as many people this year. The Resident Advisor Backyard will in turn present cutting-edge names from the electronic music scene and the Voimala-building situated in an old sheet metal hall is dedicated to techno. The experimental program of The Other Sound is even more extensive than before with contemporary classical music and also for the first time performing arts.

Renewed festival area

This year Flow has a total of 11 venues for over 100 performing artists or groups. Gigs will be seen on big stages as well as in smaller, atmospheric venues.

The Zalando Factory is introduced for the first time in the old factory hall, and serves up shows mainly by up and coming acts. The hall also houses an indoor bazaar for eight food vendors and a bar. At the same time the Black Tent yard expands, making it easier to move about. There will be a record number of food vendors at the festival including a new area focusing on vegan food in the middle of Suvilahti. For friends of quality films and refreshing drinks, there is the new, stylish Riviera Cinema Bar.

The Lapin Kulta Red Arena premieres in place of the Blue Tent with the new venue’s size equivalent to the Main Stage. The tent is bigger than ever seen in Finland, and the new venue doubles the capacity of the previous one. The Main Stage has also grown and is more spectacular than ever in 2016.

The more intimate stages also have their shares of improvements. The Champagne Bar & Lounge’s hot parties move from the walkway to a tent, where people get to dance in more freedom than before. The more than 1,000 square metres of the Voimala space has the honour of being Flow Festival’s official arena for electronic music in an atmosphere created with a dark decor and bright lasers. The Bright Balloon 360° stage rises its capacity to over 1,000 people.

Flow’s new menu includes top restaurants and vegan food

Flow Festival continues as a pioneer in the field of festival food with its extensive selection of quality food and drinks. Also new tastes await, since about half of the 40 restaurants are first-timers at Flow. The selection includes high-profile street food as well as specialities by top restaurants. Especially vegan food is emphasised this year.

As one of the world’s first carbon neutral festivals, Flow aims to give its public as ecological a restaurant experience as possible. With its environmental program Sustainable Meal the festival also educates food providers to become experts in benefiting from local seasonal ingredients and in sustainable cooking.

Experimental arts, Flow Talks and Family Sunday

The collaboration that started last year between Flow Festival and the University of the Arts Helsinki will continue with cross-disciplinary art spreading all around the festival area. Also the visual artists of the year, Laura Gustafsson and Terike Haapoja, will take part with their work that creates a utopia, characterised by the equality between people and other animals.

The Friday afternoon of Flow presents yet again inspiring talks by key international figures as well as insightful workshops and discussions. Flow and the think tank Demos Helsinki are bringing together everyone interested in developing urban life at the Flow Talks: Urban life sessions.

Interactive performances, fun workshops and a raft of other activities will also attract families to make their way to Flow on Sunday August 14, when an adult with a Flow ticket may bring along a child aged 0-10 for free between 1-6 pm. Otherwise the age limit to Flow is 18 years.