AWAKE Festival 2021

AWAKE Festival is coming back this summer in a new pandemic-tailored shape

AWAKE, the first boutique festival in Romania, is coming back in 2021 through a series of events with limited capacity, which will take place this summer in a few cities in our country. Tickets you have purchased for the 2020 edition remain valid for any of the cities in which the new AWAKE editions will take place.

AWAKE was the first local festival to announce that the 2020 edition was going to be cancelled, immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic impact became obvious at the end of February last year, before the Romanian Government announced the ban of summer festivals.

“Ever since last year’s summer, we decided to keep our team together and start working on a plan to get AWAKE back in the shape of a safe festival, adapted to the pandemic. We obviousy had hopes to resume work and get back to ‘normal’ in 2021, but we could not base our festival on hope only. We are approaching the month of February and all the activities of the events sector are still on hold, without having any certainty that during this summer it will be possible to organise festivals of tens of thousands of people or if limited capacity events will be permitted.” Laura Coroianu, Director of AWAKE Festival declared.

The new AWAKE 2021 will become a nomad festival and will take place on weekends in different cities in the country. For the time being, the list of cities includes, next to Teleki Estate in Gornesti, Mures, at least four other cities: Constanta, Iasi, Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest. “The pandemic came with restrictions and reluctance to travel, so one of our objectives is to bring back the AWAKE festival feeling in the homes of the fans, in their own cities. AWAKE is going to adapt this year to the pandemic development and will become a nomad festival, where the safety of the participants and complying with current local legal norms become a priority. We will of course keep AWAKE’s ADN of a boutique art, music and ideas festival, remaining loyal to our original AWAKE concept” Laura Coroianu added.

The capacities for the new AWAKE events will be limited, at the present time we base our plans on a scenario which will allow us to receive a number of 1000 to 3000 people daily in each city. The wearing of face coverings, keeping a safe distance, vaccination, quick testing and minimising crowding are the main factors which were considered in planning the festival, our main objective being to assure the health and safety of all those involved in these events, from the performing artists and the public, to the staff working at the festival.

“AWAKE always attracted a responsible and engaged public, we have no doubt that our festival’s fans are the perfect public target to put into practice this type of solidarity. We are currently in contact with the local authorities’ representatives and we are trying to get a clear response as soon as possible from their side regarding the legal norms which the Romanian Government will adopt for live events, but from last year’s experience we are aware that this process can be long. Still, we hope that soon we will be able to rely on specific directions so we can move forward and get to the next step in organising our festival. “, Guido Janssens, Managing Partner.

More details concerning the locations of the events, dates, concept, line-up and tickets will soon be communicated.