Have you heard of Pohoda festival? Here are some facts that should make you immediately buy a ticket for the next year’s edition, we are also going for sure!
But why?
Pohoda is one of the largest Central European festivals, located in the area of the old airport of Trenchin city. It is huge, not only in terms of venue size, number of visitors, stages, music bands or workshops. This is for sure the major social event in Slovakia and its surroundings. But it is not about the size, it is all about the people!

What makes Pohoda so special is the feeling of importance and belonging it brings to people. Founded in 1997 by a musician, whose band Bez ladu a skladu was banned in Slovakia during the communist regime, the festival continues to unite people from all over the country and Europe, upbringing important social issues through music, entertainment, discussions and good beer. By the way Bez ladu a scladu continue to perform at each edition and we get to see one of the godfathers of the festival Michal Kascak. A teenager we met shared that the whole festival is so important to all the Slovaks for “this guy is a complete sweetheart”. For sure all the different levels of organization did a great job at combining the cultural energy of Slovakia and the region and to create a friendly and involving atmosphere which somehow lacks snobbishness…
The unique feature of the festival is that for 20 years and 21 editions it brought and raised a whole generation of open-minded music – lovers, who continue to go to the festival with their families, kids and friends. That’s why it is a common thing to see an elderly couple with their teenage son or daughter dancing next to a younger father with a baby on his shoulders. The amount of old people was equal to the amount of kids – huge!
Although Pohoda is classified mainly as a music festival, it is more of a fair in the coolest sense of the word. Certainly the event is not limited only to a variety of stages and a tent camp and the focus is not on the alcohol, drugs, or getting wasted because of the affordable prices. Most of the people we spoke to, said they don’t go to the festival just for the music, even though the line up was really worth it. This smartly picked up selection for sure draws the attention to an event exploring evolving subcultures and a meeting point of different nationalities which distinguishes Pohoda from “bass bin” festivals targeting people who has no better idea how to waste their youth (no offense at all 🙂 ).
M.I.A., Benjamin Clementine, Solange, Princess Nokia, C Duncan, Machinedrum and the complete freak Mykki Blanco, who showed the crowd why they call it a show in America, are some of the names who made us lose ourselves into the vibe of this year’s edition.
Princess Nokia just blew the spot too, declaring her name should stand right next to the biggest ones in the industry. Bands like Baloji confirmed our feeling that this festival is a massive multicultural event.
As Slavic people, of course we were eager to hear some Slovak bands too. Bolo nas jedenast, Katarzia, Tolstoys, Fallgrapp, the beloved of the Slovak crowd Para and even small punk bands like No Brake gave their hearts to this festival and the crowd responded the same way. We couldn’t understand much from the talk for the situation in the Slovak music industry, but from the bands we heard it’s not bad at all.
People feel proud to be at Pohoda, because there they find a place to share what is important for them, to participate in discussions, to develop social awareness and of course to have a really good time and emotions meanwhile. From what we saw the festival takes care of its guests and people pay it back by not being an unconscious crowd, but warmhearted community which believes in the positive social effect of music and every kind of art. One thing is certain, Pohoda brings festival culture at a new and very high level. Not to forget that the relation between Bulgarians and Slovaks is super warm. 🙂 Not only because later in Bratislava we saw a monument of the Bulgarian partisans who died for the Slovak people, but for the fact we are really close as mentality and temperament (which meant an unstoppable “Na Zdravie!” during the whole festival).
So even for “foreign” visitors like us it was a pleasure to become a part of this community gathered around the idea of the actual use of culture – from gardening and poetry workshops to discussions about contemporary stage, music management, etc. We spoke to performers and participants, we ate delicious food and trust us or not we drank some beer. The day time was perfectly balanced between chill out areas, where you can have sun creme for free and all the fun-centered spots where you can meet someone on a speed date, listen to festival’s radio „Radio active„, have a walk in the sunflower garden, or just chill with nice people.
Thank you Pohoda for being such a meaningful place and wait for us next year, hopefully with a huge group of friends! This festival is a must for the Bulgarian meloman and as it has happened already, we hope the festival will host Bulgarian artists again and again. To assure our return we put no coin in no fountain but instead left our soaked tent as a gift to the festival signed (pay close attention) “Pohoda”!
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