Huzzah! Popfest Wien – Vienna’s annual, extravagant pop-music Song Of Myself – has released its program of artists and side events for 2024. And not a moment too soon! The festival is taking place from July 25 – 28. Read on for a sampling of the wonders they have in store…
The Venues
Popfest Wien, the city of Vienna’s (entirely justified) celebration of its home-grown pop scene – takes place every year on and around Vienna’s Karlsplatz. The big stage – the Seebühne – is, true to its name, placed smack in the middle of the reflecting pool in front of the Karlskirche, and is surrounded by a clutch of more intimate venues: the Stadtkino, Club U, and two stages each in the recently renovated Wien Museum and the Technical University (the TU’s Kuppelsaal is worth seeing in and of itself).
The Acts
In the words of this year’s curators, Lisa Schneider and Markus Binder: “This year’s edition brings you the best summertime mixture of fresh, extreme, rough, crazy, and extravagant voices and sounds with an intense, subjective approach to the current situation…undogmatic, progressive, relaxed, collective, funny, danceable.” In other words: youthful angst and rebellion, dancefloor escapism, and everything in between. A very condensed list of highlights includes Der Nino aus Wien, Verifiziert, Oskar Haag (Thursday), Viji, Culk, Sharktank (Friday), Enesi M., Anna Mabo, Ja, Panik (Saturday), and Aze (Sunday). We highly recommend checking out the full program on the Popfest site.
The Sessions
As in recent years, mica – music austria and the Wirtschaftsagentur Wien (Vienna Business Agency) will be presenting a two-day series of workshops and panels – the Popfest Wien Sessions – focusing on different aspects of musical life.
Friday will feature two workshops: “Production”, led by Sophie Lindinger (Leyya, My Ugly Clementine), and “SAU”, led by writer and performance artist Lydia Haider. The latter event is, we reckon, a songwriting workshop with the aim of creating a sort of counterculture ode to Popfest Wien.
Also on Friday is the discussion “Punk. Nichts gelernt.”, a panel on the grassroots, anti-academic approach to music, featuring Anda Morts and Bipolar Feminin‘s Leni Ulrich.
The discourse continues on Saturday with “Under The Influence”, an examination of the effects of social media on art and artists, featuring Veronika König (aka FARCE) and Sophie Löw (Sophia Blenda/Culk).
All of the Popfest Sessions take place at the Wien Museum and are free of charge. *Achtung: capacity for the workshops is very limited, so send an email to workshops(at)popfest.at to reserve your spot!
To make a long story short: if you currently have plans to be anywhere besides Karlsplatz on the last weekend of July, we strongly encourage you to reconsider them. See you at Popfest!