Pohoda festival celebrates 25 years today
Twenty-five years ago today, Trenčín’s city stadium welcomed the very first Pohoda. In the past quarter century, what started as a small gathering of friends and alternative music fans has evolved into the best-known multi-genre festival in Slovakia and an important spot on the European festival map. Each year, Pohoda appears among the nominees for the most prestigious festival awards. The festival also has reviews of praise by renowned media such as The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, DIY or Gigwise under its belt.
29. June 2022
Each year, tens of thousands of visitors and hundreds of artists are coming to the festival in Trenčín. The world stars such as The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Björk and Lou Reed played the festival. And some of these big names, for example, The Prodigy and Nick Cave, have managed to come twice. Michal Kaščák has revealed more about what lies behind festival’s start, what memorable moments define it and what the driving force to start its preparations once and again is:
“I’m lucky to have good friends. To my complaining about the absence of festivals in Slovakia, one of them – Víťa Chromek – reacted as follows: ‘So why don’t you do something about it?’, and another one – Mário Michna from Trenčín’s hardcore scene – joined me and we organized the first Pohoda edition. My motivation back then stemmed from my ardor for music and it still does, only now it comprises the art in its entirety. Each year, our main aim is to prepare a space for people to meet and to celebrate freedom together. I’m glad that we have been in Trenčín for a quarter century and I’m happy that Trenčín is marked on the world cultural map as one of its art centers. I’m looking forward to the following years.”
Pohoda preparations are again well underway and after its online version and considerably limited Pohoda on the Ground, visitors can again look forward to the event with standard capacity to take place in a week. Head of Production, Ondrej Poláček, describes what the preparations on a large scale after three long years look like in Pohoda team (and what he is looking forward to the most): “We started the construction works the earliest in festival’s history. On June 6th, Juraj Gábor arrived at the airport with his friends to build his piece of work Sphéra. We are happy that every day at the airport we meet suppliers we haven’t seen for three long years. We meet the temp workers, a strong community that is doing everything they can to make things work has already formed at the airport. We believe that the festival-goers will be pleasantly surprised at several things.”
It is mainly thanks to the visitors that Pohoda managed to survive the twice postponed festival in the times of global pandemic. The vast majority have kept their tickets which has allowed the festival to keep the team together and continue Pohoda preparations. The real celebrations of festival’s twenty fifth anniversary will launch in their presence at Trenčín airport in a week.
Several main partners supported Pohoda as well. Apart from financial aid, each year, partners make the time festival-goers spend at the event more pleasant with the service and extracurricular activities they provide and they also co-create the overall festival atmosphere. In collaboration with festival, they will introduce several ecological novelties within production, merchandise as well as gastronomy again this year. Those who want to save some time at the festival gate, can get their tickets exchanged for wristbands at Slovenská sporiteľňa’s branches (in county towns) or in special trains dispatched by ZSSK (Slovak Railway Company). Festival will be offering more live streams from concerts and debates. After last year’s premiere at Pohoda on the Ground, we will be giving away our own festival magazine again and with Orange’s support, we have started to develop a new festival app. The spectrum of services will simply be again comparable to (if not better than) the one of a town with a similar amount of inhabitants. On the following pages, you can learn more about what our partners have prepared for Pohoda festival-goers. “It might not look like it, but this really is just a brief overview,” says Festival Partnership Director, Dominika Horňáková.
MAIN PARTNERS
SLSP
Slovenská sporiteľňa is bringing easy payments to the airport again. On the entire festival site, card, phone and smartwatch contactless payment options will be available. In case you still need some cash, ATMs will be located on site as well. From July 2nd through July 4th, visitors can get their tickets exchanged for wristbands at Slovenská sporiteľňa branches and save some time during their arrival at the festival. They can recharge at Slovenská sporiteľňa Garden and record their message for future generations in a special attraction “Časula” (Timesule – a time capsule). A hot air balloon flight will guarantee the best view during the sundown.
ORANGE
A good quality internet Wi-Fi connection for everyone is powered by Orange. Charger spots, Orange experts and attractions such as the possibility to try interesting digital technologies out thanks to Lab powered by Orange Foundation will again be available in the chill-out zone. For their customers, Orange offers an extra data package of 5 GB for free. Festival visitors can hand over their old phones for ecological recycling and this way enter a contest for a chance to win a ticket to Pohoda 2023. Orange has also supported the development of a new Pohoda 2022 Festival App, which will soon be made available for download via Google Play and App Store.
URPINER
Banská Bystrica based brewery Urpiner will be offering a wide range of their own products and beer specials. In addition to the usual assortment, beer gourmets can taste Yeast 12°, Extra Hopped 14° and Light Special IPL 13°. This year, the brewery prepares unique festival beers that will be brewed especially for Pohoda. They will also present this year’s beer novelty at the festival. There will be a varied accompanying program in the URPINER Zone that will include a spacious terrace, a giant inflatable bar and a novelty in the form of a beer bus (a stylish double-decker bus).
ECOLOGY
Pohoda 2022 will present several improvements to help the festival reduce its environmental impact. Our aim again is for a person at Pohoda to reach a lower carbon footprint than the average in Slovakia. Pohoda’s new partner, Slovenská inovačná energetická agentúra (Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency) is here to help. Their project Žiť energiou (Living with Energy) will be in charge of the energy self-sufficient GEM Stage. In their stand, you can learn how to save energy and get info about hydrogen vehicles which represent the future of mobility. The partner will also offer debates, a chill-out zone and activities. Anyone who wants to jam can come to the Žiť energiou – GEM Stage on Friday and Saturday after 11 AM. Project Inovujme.sk will be presenting ecological as well as other innovations. Visitors can taste pancakes from a 3D printer here, make cotton candy by cycling, exercise with VR IcarosM and try 3D painting in VR world.
Thanks to ZSE and “Green Energy”, Pohoda will be powered by transformer stations with electric power from renewable sources. ZSE will be also providing solar lamps. At the waste collection points with assisted waste sorting service, ENVI – PAK and the Comenius University representatives will help visitors sort the waste out. Thanks to this initiative, the waste produced at Pohoda will not end at the waste disposal site, but will be recycled or recovered. The Embassy of the Netherlands in Slovakia is bringing a Circular Point to the festival. With their traditional recycle-workroom Umelohmotné, they will transform the plastic waste into original shining tent stakes. NRG22 company provides the festival with solar containerized generator to power first aid as well as foosball. Festival clean-up will be more ecological thanks to detergents from TIERRA VERDE.
TRANSPORTATION
ZSSK will provide comfy and eco-friendly transportation with special festival trains that will be dispatched from Košice and Bratislava. Festival check-in is available on the train so visitors can save nature and also their time at festival gates. On the festival site, you can help your feet a bit by using the festival train. Those traveling by bus with Slovak Lines, will get straight to the festival gate. Buses will be dispatched on Thursday from Bratislava, Žilina, Banská Bystrica, Trnava, Nitra, Piešťany, Prievidza and Zvolen. On Friday morning, additional buses from Bratislava, Trnava and Piešťany will be dispatched. On Sunday, after the festival’s end, buses will take visitors back home on the same route, departing from the main Urpiner Stage at 10:30 AM. The exact departure times and more details are available at https://cutt.ly/PohodaSoSlovakLines.
Pohoda’s new mobility partner LeasePlan will be renting cars to Pohoda team in the upcoming year and apart from the big wheels it will spin the wheels of roller skates at the favorite Roller Disco. The novelty in the artist and production mobility within the festival site will be “golf” electric cars from Eco Cars that will make the transportation of equipment, people and material easier and with zero local emissions.
GASTRONOMY AND DRINKS
Herbert sirupy will introduce a new concept of Farmers’ Zone at Pohoda. In cooperation with Farma Hiadlovec, local products without unnecessary chemical food preservatives will be available in the zone. Apart from refreshments in the form of lemonades and drinks or the legendary “Lepenec”, the area will feature a garden with herbs and vegetables, a green oasis with shades. Each morning, they will be preparing fresh breakfast and debates with growers and farmers. As participants in the ecological project GEX, they will focus on the topics of sustainability, zero waste and climate. The program under their patronage that starts at night in the Herbert Club, is scheduled to continue till the morning.
In Lunter tent, you can discover tasty healthy food again with them offering 100 % plant-based food made of tofu and other quality ingredients without preservatives or food dyes. A new item on the menu will be sautéed tofu prepared as a snack to go. Their mobile team will be distributing tasty breakfast, custards as well as oatmeal directly to the tents. Regal Burger was founded at Pohoda back in 2013 and will be there again this year. You can find loaded cheat-meal, fresh street-food as well as veggie specials in their stand. Via their Treskoslovenská mňambasáda (CzechCodSlovak Yummbassy), Ryba Košice will be supplying the favorite retro mayo cod salad. Ovozela will bring fresh fruit and visitors on the campsites will have the Pierre Baguette vending machines at their disposal.
After many years, Kofola is coming back to Pohoda. In addition to tasty soft drinks, Kofola has prepared workshops with designers where visitors can upcycle their clothes. Red Bull is coming to give you energy and to offer tasty mixed drinks. A different kind of energy will be provided by winemakers from Chateau Topoľčianky or retro food trucks Hey You inspired by the hippies era. At their WineCar, signature Hey You Bubbles in stylish cans as well as a wide range of delicious wines from the Svätý Jur based winery ViaJur and coffee will be offered. Huricane comes with a novelty in the form of fruity non-alcoholic cane sugar drinks. The adults can also try a Prosseco take on these drinks. Fruit juices and iced teas will again be offered by PIJO BIO and Julius Meinl is providing Pohoda with coffee and coffee machines.
MEDIA, STREAMING AND DEBATES
Our main media partners will be broadcasting the festival atmosphere from the airport. RTVS crews will provide Pohoda coverage via their new news channel :24 as well as via Rádio_FM that will be broadcasting live directly from the airport starting on Thursday. Aktuality.sk will have a new space. In a beautiful wooden circus tent Magic Mirrors, a fantastic theater play Kontrabas with Martin Huba, concerts, debates about Slovakia’s 30 years of existence, quality of justice, investigative journalism, disinformation as well as hockey are planned. Debates in .týždeň tent will be planned in a similar fashion. In addition to debates, you can also come here to watch a documentary about the first Afghan women’s orchestra Zohra or the Pohoda on the Ground documentary made of visitors’ videos. Apart from the above-mentioned magazine, you can read about Pohoda in Denník N’s Pohodenník (Pohodaily) again. Thanks to our streaming partner, Amazon, festival can offer even more live streams.
You can watch the program from the Aktuality.sk stage as well as the ESET (open) space debates that are coming to the festival thanks to ESET Science Award live. The debates will revolve around the topics of climate change, modern urbanism, AI development, pandemic, food crisis and cyber threats. The debates will be taking place in Juraj Gábor’s artistic installation Sphéra.
Representation of the European Commission in Slovakia is again bringing Európa Stage and EÚ FUN Zone to Pohoda. The program in the tent will feature important debates about Ukraine, famine in the world as well as a discussion of the President of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová, with Štefan Hríb. In the FUN Zone, various contests, the “Disinformation Stress Test” and, in partnership with SAAIC – Erasmus+ National Agency – and Iuventa, educational activities are planned. You can write your message for Ukraine on the wings of the European dove of peace. Debates are planned at the Orange Foundation’s Optimistan (Optimistent) as well – the topics include children’s cyber security, hockey and cultural-community centers in regions. One of the debates will be dedicated to Milan Lasica. SOZA is one hundred years old and its debates will feature the topic of women in music and they also prepared a lyric writing workshop.
DANCE, LITERATURE AND OTHER PROGRAM
Dancing is planned all day long in NAY Tanečný dom (House of Dance). In addition to workshops, on Thursday after midnight, the former as well as the current key figures of the festival core team will be playing a selection of 42 songs from the 25 years of Pohoda. Those interested can come to get a “Retro – back in 80’s” hairdo in the NAY Rowenta hairdressing salon.
In cooperation with Literary Club, Martinus bookstore has two days full of quality readings and exceptional guests in store for visitors. The personalities such as Heather Morris and Reinhard Kleist will be there; a debate dedicated to Meky Žbirka is planned; writer Martin Pollack will be talking about book Halič and Jón Kalman Stefánsson will bring the atmosphere of Icelandic literature. The popular KK Bagala Literary Circus, LiteRAPture, Slam Poetry as well as book quiz will be part of the program, too. Galéria Ľudovíta Fullu (Ľudovít Fulla Gallery) will be organizing workshops as well as an exhibition of digital reproduction of Ľudovít Fulla work titled Scan Me.
Pohoda has not been selling liquors for many years and since 2020, it is not possible to buy cigarettes at the festival either. In Bezdymová zóna (Smoke-Free Zone), they got replaced by Heats. But the zone will also be offering cocktails, ice cream, video projections, amazing concerts and, on Friday night next to the main stage, A Drone Show. In professor Dohorel’s lab, the harmfulness of cigarette smoke will be demonstrated via experiments and smoke-free options for adult tobacco smokers will be presented.
HEALTH AND BEAUTY
Curaprox will once again teach us how to brush our teeth correctly. There will be a game where you will guess which toothpaste your loved one has used, and also speed dating. Everything will finish with a mass kissing event. Starlynr will also talk about the advantages of invisible braces. After smiling, the Pohoda visitors can have their eyes checked in the tent of FOKUS ophthalmic optics. Besides eyesight, you can also measure the UV filter of your sunglasses or practice relief exercises for digital eye fatigue. Visitors can get free festival tickets by joining the team as part-time workers and volunteers, or by undergoing a pre-surgery examination for the iLASIK procedure at the Vesely Eye Clinic. No more stigma will offer mental health first-aid in the Tent of Mental Wellbeing and the online platform Ksebe will try to break down stereotypes and barriers in this area in the offline environment. Thanks to this platform, you can also experience group therapy or so-called Walking therapies.
Packing for POHODA will be easier even this year thanks to DIXI cosmetics which will provide shampoos and shower gels. In their tent, you will find the work of Slovak and Ukrainian artists, and you can also participate in group artwork painting. A Nubian dispensing box with sunscreen will also be nearby. Konopná farma Liptov (Hemp farm Liptov) will bring special hemp products, cosmetics, hemp tea, and lemonade, and they will also explain how their products affect the body.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
An exceptionally colourful novelty of Pohoda 2022 will be the Unfashionable merch – inspired by the 80s and 90s fashion, singer Meky Žbirka, and above all the love of nature. Textil House prepared a selection of fantastic retro pieces for fans of sustainable fashion and our graphic team complemented them with "Unfashionable guy" and "Unfashionable girl" badges. Slovak local brand Fusakle will bring their limited-edition festival socks, a competition in throwing socks into the washing machine, and a "Colour Your Socks" challenge. SLOVLAK Paint Zone will also provide a creative outlet with painting on t-shirts, bags, or fans. Visitors can repair their damaged shoes, sandals, or tents at camp managers' thanks to SLOVCEM adhesives and sealants.
INSTITUTIONS
The City of Trenčín stand will once again feature a lost and found section as well as information about Trenčín. A virtual reality demonstration, measurement of radioactivity, and a photo shoot in protective gear and with props used when working with radiation will be presented by Slovenská nukleárna spoločnosť (Slovak Nuclear Society).
In the EURES tent, you can have fun with quizzes and competitions, and find out more about full-time or part-time jobs in the European Union and the EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein). Speaking of EEA, the festival received a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway through the EEA Grants under the project Keeping up the Freedom. Thanks to this, Pohoda will also welcome Icelandic bands at Café Kušnierik (named after the biggest Pohoda and the Icelandic music ambassador Juraj Kušnierik). The project was co-financed from the state budget funds of the Slovak Republic (www.eegrants.sk). We will also bring several European bands to the festival thanks to the ETEP programme, while the concerts of bands Noga Erez, Malox, and Liraz were supported by the Israeli Embassy. The biggest stars of Pohoda will once again stay at the Elizabeth Hotel in Trenčín. After three years, the festival will be at full capacity and with a busy programme also thanks to the support of other partners such as the European Investment Bank and the Slovak Arts Council.
This year, the Profesia job portal let Pohoda use their online tools when looking for beverage stands workers or other part-time workers and volunteers. By the way, part-time work and volunteering at Pohoda will once again be even tastier thanks to vegan baguettes by You Vegan, a supply of quality ZIPSER meat products by Tauris, Rajo dairy products, and Cyril's crisps from the Krajči Plus company.
Pohoda will start in just a week and and will probably fill to capacity again. The smooth operation of our festival website was once again ensured by the Bonet company. We'd like to remind you that a nicely and densely processed summary of the most important information and interesting facts about Pohoda 2022 will be in the new Pohoda festival magazine. It was printed (just like hundreds of other printed materials) by the Bittner company.
"We are proud of our partnerships which enrich and improve Pohoda. The most important partners of the festival are its visitors. We look forward to seeing them in a week," adds head of partnerships Dominika Horňáková. Pohoda 2022 will open its doors in just a week – on Thursday 7 July. There are only the last 1,500 tickets left, which you can buy at www.pohodafestival.sk/en/shop/shop-tickets.