The first and second days of Viljandi Folk Music Festival set records for audience attendance

Laululava, the main stage of this year's festival, with the opening concert of Puuluup, attracted 9,000 people to the Viljandi Folk Music Festival on Thursday, an all-time record for four-day attendance. Yesterday, Friday evening, an estimated 8000-9000 folk music fans gathered to listen to Trad.Attack! at Laululava in Viljandi, the festival's record audience for a single concert so far.

The XXXI Viljandi Folk Music Festival started on Thursday afternoon with a procession and opening ceremony. The festival was welcomed by the Minister of Culture, Heidy Purga, who thanked everyone who has contributed to the organisation and realisation of the Viljandi Folk Music Festival. “It is your dedication and passion that makes Viljandi folk music festival a unique and unforgettable event,” she noted in her speech, adding that during the Viljandi Folk Music Festival, the lovely Viljandi becomes a very big cultural centre, filled with music, joy, and vibrant Estonian heritage as well as the world’s.

Presenting the symbolic key to the city to the organisers of the festival, Viljandi's deputy mayor Johan-Kristjan Konovalov stated that Viljandi Folk Music Festival is as much a part of his life as Christmas or Midsummer Day and praised the organisers for always looking for new ways to make the festival even better and more enjoyable for visitors. “That's what I like most about the festival, that it's constant but always evolving. That is why I have a lot of confidence in the festival as mayor,” said Mr Konovalov.

The festival was opened with a reggae song sung by Ando Kiviberg, to which the audience actively sang along. Kiviberg, the head of the festival commented that “if half of the audience sitting here today didn't feel uncomfortable at the moment, then we have already fulfilled our mission with this festival in these 30 years,” thanking the audience for their loyalty and support.

For four days, the biggest festival at the end of July covers nine hectares of land, nine stages and a programme of nearly five hundred performers on stages and in workshops. There are 70 concerts in the main programme on the festival grounds and in Viljandi Baptist Church, and another 70 in the innovative Old Town area on the Green Stage and in the Friends' Courtyard.