Viljandi Folk Music Festival 2025 deeply resonated with young people
The Baltic’s biggest folk music festival – Viljandi Folk Music Festival – is known for its young audience. This year, for the 32nd edition, the festival confirmed that traditional music resonates with today’s youth more profoundly than ever before. The festival's theme, "Off the ground!", inspired the audience to both celebrate and reflect.
Festival director Ando Kiviberg noted that the artistic goals were achieved:
"It brings great joy that the theme reached the audience and was embraced with enthusiasm. I’m especially pleased with the success of youth-focused activities – the popularity of traditional music among Estonian youth is remarkable even on an international scale, as pointed out by both foreign guests and international media representatives."
Programme manager Tarmo Noormaa added that the programme encouraged people to dance, celebrate, and contemplate. The dance halls and the men's singing room, where people sang standing up and with tears in their eyes, received strong positive feedback. Marju Kõivupuu’s late-night lecture on Estonian funeral traditions was also notably well received.
Over four days, the 32nd Viljandi Folk Music Festival saw 38,000 visits and nearly 16,000 unique wristband holders – a noticeable increase compared to the previous year. Both the number of festival pass holders and other ticket types grew. The count of unique attendees also included all performers, team members, vendors, invited guests, and children, who were also registered with wristbands.
This year, the festival improved its audience tracking – thanks to advanced technical capabilities and cooperation with Sviby, data collection and analysis is now significantly more accurate than in previous years.
On the festival’s opening day, 7,000 entries were registered, and one of the most popular concerts was by Curly Strings – their concert area at Kaevumägi was filled. Large crowds also gathered for the concerts of Haydamaky and Paabel. On Friday, 11,000 visitors were present, with the most popular performance being by Trad.Attack! at the Song Festival Grounds, drawing an audience of 8,000–9,000 – similar to last year. Mari Kalkun’s concert was also very popular.
Saturday brought 12,000 people to the festival area, with the largest crowd gathering for Zetod, attracting 7,000–8,000 enthusiastic listeners to the Song Festival Grounds. Other Saturday night crowd-pullers included Untsakad, who have never missed a single year of the festival. On the final festival day, there were 8,000 people on-site, and the late evening concert NOËP Goes Folk vol II drew a large number of day and evening pass holders, with an estimated 6,000 attendees. A highly popular daytime concert was also given by Ímar from Scotland.
The Viljandi Folk Music Festival took place from 24–27 July, 2025. The programme featured over 70 main stage concerts across four outdoor and three indoor venues, as well as 100 free concerts at the Green Stage in the old town and in the Friends’ Yard. The next festival will take place from 23–26 July, 2026.
Photo gallery can be found HERE https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/c8dq4co1irypzgap63qnb/AJNesa8nNz9DqA0OOtHRF28?rlkey=w9xins21l3orb59yjj6pav1iq&st=7jzdtm0p&dl=0
Festival director Ando Kiviberg noted that the artistic goals were achieved:
"It brings great joy that the theme reached the audience and was embraced with enthusiasm. I’m especially pleased with the success of youth-focused activities – the popularity of traditional music among Estonian youth is remarkable even on an international scale, as pointed out by both foreign guests and international media representatives."
Programme manager Tarmo Noormaa added that the programme encouraged people to dance, celebrate, and contemplate. The dance halls and the men's singing room, where people sang standing up and with tears in their eyes, received strong positive feedback. Marju Kõivupuu’s late-night lecture on Estonian funeral traditions was also notably well received.
Over four days, the 32nd Viljandi Folk Music Festival saw 38,000 visits and nearly 16,000 unique wristband holders – a noticeable increase compared to the previous year. Both the number of festival pass holders and other ticket types grew. The count of unique attendees also included all performers, team members, vendors, invited guests, and children, who were also registered with wristbands.
This year, the festival improved its audience tracking – thanks to advanced technical capabilities and cooperation with Sviby, data collection and analysis is now significantly more accurate than in previous years.
On the festival’s opening day, 7,000 entries were registered, and one of the most popular concerts was by Curly Strings – their concert area at Kaevumägi was filled. Large crowds also gathered for the concerts of Haydamaky and Paabel. On Friday, 11,000 visitors were present, with the most popular performance being by Trad.Attack! at the Song Festival Grounds, drawing an audience of 8,000–9,000 – similar to last year. Mari Kalkun’s concert was also very popular.
Saturday brought 12,000 people to the festival area, with the largest crowd gathering for Zetod, attracting 7,000–8,000 enthusiastic listeners to the Song Festival Grounds. Other Saturday night crowd-pullers included Untsakad, who have never missed a single year of the festival. On the final festival day, there were 8,000 people on-site, and the late evening concert NOËP Goes Folk vol II drew a large number of day and evening pass holders, with an estimated 6,000 attendees. A highly popular daytime concert was also given by Ímar from Scotland.
The Viljandi Folk Music Festival took place from 24–27 July, 2025. The programme featured over 70 main stage concerts across four outdoor and three indoor venues, as well as 100 free concerts at the Green Stage in the old town and in the Friends’ Yard. The next festival will take place from 23–26 July, 2026.
Photo gallery can be found HERE https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/c8dq4co1irypzgap63qnb/AJNesa8nNz9DqA0OOtHRF28?rlkey=w9xins21l3orb59yjj6pav1iq&st=7jzdtm0p&dl=0