Pictures: Niki Soukkio, Julius Konttinen ja Petri Saarelainen

“July in particular is an intensive period, and our working days are more or less spent in the field in the summer. On days off, we drop by home to do the laundry and then it’s time to go away again,” says Krista Heinonen, Event Director at Nelonen Media Live.

She has a moment to talk with us on her way from Helsinki to the Rockfest event site in Hyvinkää, where the building of the main stage began on the day of the interview – a little over a week before the first artist is to be onstage. Rockfest is Nelonen Media Live’s biggest summer event.

Finland’s biggest rock festival will open up NML’s festival summer from 8 to 10 June, and it ends with Kuopiorock on 27–29 July. In total, 13 festivals, 148 artists, hundreds of seasonal workers, some 280,000 festival-goers. The festival hurries of the summer are genuinely beginning.

Last summer, Krista Heinonen was responsible for Rockfest in Hyvinkää, Iskelmä Festivaali in Pori and Suomipop Festivaali in Oulu. In March, she was appointed as Event Director. Her role has changed to operational management and supervisory work, but she still feels drawn to the field.

The summer rush period at work across Finland is the “icing on the cake” – this is what she has been working for the entire year. In the background of event productions, there is a group of familiar nice people around a shared passion. A wonderful festival bubble. To Heinonen, people are the best part of her job. To her and many others, producing festivals is a way of life – yet she also knows that this is not a job for everyone.

The job does involve meeting a lot of people: equipment suppliers, environmental services, producers, artists and their teams, the audience... When the events are large and diverse, so are the subcontracting chains and stakeholders.

Lots of seasonal workers are hired for festival productions. Some of them start their work already in February–March.

“At that time, we always say that the pace is now picking up,” Heinonen laughs out.

Promoter Janne Tamminen takes his holidays in August after touring the summer festivals. He does not long for holiday in July, like many office workers do. His work for the festival summer may have begun already 18 months before the artists go onstage in front of a roaring crowd. Big international performers in particular for this summer may have been booked as early as the beginning of 2022. Now, the eyes are partly already on summer 2024.

Tamminen usually books the headliners first and then starts to wonder what kind of a line-up can be built for each festival. The programme should not only be interesting, but also as diverse as possible. When fixing the schedules, ways to have the audience present for the entire day are also considered.

This means lots of different kinds of artists for listeners of different kinds.

“If you create a programme for a narrow audience, it will also be reflected in ticket sales. And, of course, the aim is to sell as many tickets as possible. It requires quite a lot of brainstorming.”

Tammerfest 2022. Picture: Julius Konttinen

Last summer is remembered for the cancellation of many festivals. Nelonen Media Live CEO Anssi Nevalainen assures us that all of NML’s 13 festivals will take place.

“Last summer, there was a record-high number of events and festivals, with lots of events postponed from previous years due to COVID-19, and also many new events and festivals organised on top of them. Next summer, the total number of events seems to be somewhat lower, but we will still be having a busy and active summer of events,” Nevalainen comments on the market outlook.

Increasing prices are a headache for both festivalgoers and organisers. Inflation increases the costs of organising a festival, and thereby also festival ticket prices. Major changes relating to human behaviour are naturally also visible in purchase behaviour.

“With regard to event ticket sales, we can see that the majority of the public makes final purchase decisions closer to the event. In our events and festivals, pre-sales of tickets on the whole have gone positively compared to last year and according to the forecast,” Nevalainen says.

Promoter Tamminen regrets that the rationale of ticket pricing is not always understood. It is not a question of greed, but because everything costs more to the organiser as well. With a single festival having up to hundreds of employees, the total costs increase rapidly.

“At times, it is unpleasant to read comments on social media when you are familiar with the cost structure yourself. At times, I feel like commenting: if you only knew that the pressure to increase prices is much harder than the price increases seen now,” Tamminen says.

“We need to be in the black to be able to continue to operate. It would be great if we could sell three-day tickets for a hundred euros, but that is not possible.”

For Krista Heinonen, this summer is different from the previous ones in that in her current role, at least theoretically she could visit even all of Nelonen Media Live’s festivals. Festivals are mainly produced by two teams, and many of the events also overlap. For example, NML organises as many as three festivals at Midsummer. They are RMJ, Himos Juhannus and Tahko Juhannus.

“We have playfully called the other team ‘the provincial caravan’, because they tour Rauma, Pori, Hämeenlinna, Oulu and Tampere. The same set of equipment tours along, and it has made sense to plan it so that the people working at those events are familiar with it. Also schedule-wise and for smooth communication, we can get things rolling better that way,” Heinonen explains.

No one is in charge of two festivals on consecutive weekends. One must accept that days off can be somewhere far from home.

Haloo Helsinki! is the most commonly seen artist at NML’s summer 2023 festivals. The band will appear at nine festivals, while Samu Haber will be onstage eight times.  Tamminen is also interested in seeing how the new popular favourites Kuumaa, Yona and Portion Boys will fare at large festivals.

Not even an experienced promoter could prepare for everything. The Eurovision hype in May was ill-timed from the point of view of the summer.

“Having learned my lesson last year, I left a few slots empty so that I could better prepare for emerging new acts. But, then I should have left a slot empty for even longer, because what now happened with Käärijä was that suddenly he didn’t perform anywhere.”

The interviews have made it clear that organising events is a passion for many. Krista Heinonen reminds us that all the work done aims at the audience enjoying – and buying tickets again next summer. Otherwise, the festival business would be in vain.

“However, the customer is always at the core of everything. When the last artist performs and I watch the atmosphere in the crowd from the sidelines, it gives me the chills every single time. It’s always a great moment.”

Text: Jenni Id

Nelonen Media Liven festivals 2023:

  • 8.-10.6.2023    Rockfest
  • 22.-24.6.2023  RMJ
  • 22.-24.6.2023  Himos Juhannus
  • 22.-24.6.2023  Tahko Juhannus
  • 29.6.-1.7.2023 Iskelmä Himos
  • 30.6.-1.7.2023 Iskelmä Pori

  • 7.-8.7.2023        Wanaja Festival

  • 6.-8.7.2023        Jysäri
  • 13.-15.7.2023  Suomipop Festivaali Oulu
  • 13.-15.7.2023  Suomipop Festivaali Jyväskylä
  • 20.-22.7.2023  Tammerfest
  • 20.-22.7.2023  Tikkurila Festivaali
  • 27.-29.7.2023  Kuopiorock