Freedom is an important dimension of art. If it weren't for the events of November 1989, only people in uniforms instead of music stars would be walking through the Trenčín airport until today. The 30th anniversary of the greatest milestone in our history will be commemorated in several ways at Pohoda 2019. As far as music is concerned, there will be two different approaches that artists used to come to terms with the reality in times of freedom deprivation. The underground one is represented by The Plastic People of the Universe and the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra with the project “Co znamená vésti koně" (translated as Leading Horses). Coping through humour is presented by the project Bolo nás jedenásť (translated as There Were Eleven of Us), which had its live premiere at Pohoda 2017. This time it will be performed with an extended line-up and programme as well. → read more

Pohoda 2019 will also host the Finnish-Beninese band Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble. The band mixes afrobeat, voodoo rhythm, jazz and funky. This Afro-Nordic collaboration has already captivated fRoots, worldmusiccentral and many other world music-oriented portals and charts. Their second album, Fire, Sweat & Pastis, became a folk recording of the year in Finland, and last year they released their third album, We Are Together, with which they also appeared at Womex. → read more

This Friday our whole team is heading for Sharpe showcase festival in Nová Cvernovka. We’re not just going to listen to great music there, but we’ll also be part of the programme. Suzanne Verschueren, Tono Repka, B-Complex and Oscar Strajn will sum up the Slovak focus at ESNS 2019. Subsequently, our core-team will summarize our year-round effort through a workshop-sketch-lecture entitled "How To Make a Festival in 60 Minutes". Michal Kaščák will lead a Keynote interview with the Balkan promoter legend Login Kociski. Our head of production Mišo Sládek will host a debate on Zero Waste festivals and we’ll also try to retain last year's victory in the table football tournament. Suzanne and Matwe will be stagemanagers, and Matwe will also curate Nočná and play as DJ Zachód. → read more

An experimental electro-pop phenomenon from Malaysia – The Venopian Solitude – will also come to Pohoda 2019. The band has performed at Sonar, Fusion and Montreal RBMA festivals. Ten years ago, it was a solo project of an extremely productive artist performing under the pseudonym Suiko Takahara. At first she released a huge amount of her work on the website thesixtyone (approximately one EP per week), later on Bandcamp and Youtube. There she got the attention of people and media from various parts of the world (she was praised by Red Bull and Time Out, for example) thanks to her unconventional melodies and original choice of instrumentation. → read more

At the end of March, Slobodná Európa started their tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the band’s establishment with two sold-out shows in Bratislava. As a part of the tour they’ll also perform at Pohoda 2019. In addition to singer Whisky and guitarist Sveťo (couple from the original line-up), the band currently consists of multi-instrumentalist Laco Lučenič, guitarist Vlado "Jerzi" Jurča and drummer Tomáš "Tuleň" Vojtek. Next year, they plan to have a concert break and that's why we’re glad that one of our rock'n'roll flagships will perform at the Trenčín Airport, too. It’s Whisky’s home airport and it is thanks to him that we have many aerial shots of our festival. He also regularly flies with Pohoda attenders above the grounds. → read more

Last week, Viber prepared Easter eggs hunt for its users, within which they could win a paid stickerpack for free. From tomorrow on, the competition continues again in our Pohoda Viber community, too. Just like last week, we'll hide a new egg there which you can find and thus join the game. To enter the game, join our Pohoda Viber community, where we’ll add a link to begin another Easter hunt tomorrow. https://vb.me/pohodacommunityweb → read more

Pohoda 2019 will also feature Vec and Tono S. with the project Ultrazvuk. Two masters of their craft put their heads and styles together to create quality tracks full of wordplays and original humor for their hip-hop fans. Ultrazvuk offers a precise defectoscopy of our society, something we are accustomed to with both of these gentlemen. At the end of March the band released an album with 13 tracks. So far, 3 of them are also accompanied with videos; a fresh summer hit Teleport, a thankful and chilling statement as a commemoration of November 17th '89 called Tváre slobody (Faces of Freedom) and a very unusual pseudo-Christmas act called Čo urobíš? (What will you do?). They’re currently on a spring ULTRATOUR which includes the video projections of Ján Šick. Soon they’ll perform for the attenders of Pohoda 2019, too. → read more

In cooperation with our environmental partner, Železničná spoločnosť Slovensko (Slovak railways), we’ll dispatch a special festival express train from Košice to Bratislava this year, too.  The capacity of each train is 350 seats. The train arriving from eastern Slovakia will also have a party coach with a DJ. Tickets are available only via our shop at www.pohodafestival.sk/sk/shop. → read more

Pohoda is proud to announce the 5th Pohoda Visual Art Contest, where you can design an artistic installation for the festival grounds. The fifth edition will offer space also for more demanding realizations, as the winning design will receive €3,500. You are invited to submit your proposals by May 13th, and we will announce the selected proposal one day later at Pohoda deň_FM.   → read more

Raketkanon, a noise-rock band from Ghent, Belgium, will be playing Pohoda 2019 as well. Iggy Pop praised them on BBC 6 and also added their song “Nico Vand Der Eeken” to the playlist he put together for radio’s show. According to portal Louder, they are Belgium’s weirdest band and they mean it in a good way. The band released their third album titled RKTKN #3 last Friday. According to The Line of Best Fit, it “is above all else a playful record”. Raketkanon say, “they don’t sing in Flemish. They speak their own odd language; one of throttled squeals and shouts, meat-grinder waves of rolling riffs, synth-layered soundscapes, dystopic electronica-laced beats, and hypnotic grooves”. After playing festivals such as Dour or Pukkelpop, Raketkanon are coming to make fans of heavier genres happy at Pohoda 2019, too. → read more