Budapest Ritmo
UPBEAT Member
PIN Music Conference
UPBEAT Member
World Music Festival Bratislava
UPBEAT Member
Saules Muzika Festival
UPBEAT Member
Folkest
UPBEAT Member
Czech Music Crossroads
UPBEAT Member
A to Jazz Festival
UPBEAT Member
Tallinn Music Week
UPBEAT Member
Hide & Seek Festival
UPBEAT Member
Méra World Music Festival
UPBEAT Member
Polja Festival
UPBEAT Member
Pannonica Festival
UPBEAT Member
Waves Vienna
UPBEAT Member
Mercat de Música Viva de Vic
UPBEAT Member
WOMEX
UPBEAT Member
So Alive Music Conference
UPBEAT Member
Fira B!
UPBEAT Member
Napoli World / Musiconnect Italy
UPBEAT Member
SHIP Festival
UPBEAT Member
MENT
UPBEAT Member
Estam World Music Fest
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Babel Music XP
UPBEAT Member
Avant Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Imaterial
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Goulash Disko Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
One Caucasus
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Music Meeting Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Trefpunt Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Mumush Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
MARÉ Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Sicily Music Conference
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Todo Mundo World Music Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
Valmiermuiža Ethnomusic Festival
UPBEAT Associated Partner
UPBEAT Members
UPBEAT Associated Partners
UPBEAT Members
Budapest Ritmo
Budapest Ritmo festival opens up a musical universe that is guaranteed to take you out of the ordinary. Ritmo welcomes various genres, fusion styles, and unexpected cultural mixes. The lineup represents multiple countries from across continents, with a showcase stage for emerging artists, a professional section with conference discussions, networking events, as well as film screenings, afterparties, and much more. High energy, deep emotions – discover your new favourite sound at Budapest Ritmo world music festival!
PIN Music Conference
PIN is the first and only international music conference and showcase festival in Macedonia. Inspired by the community-building aspects of such events, PIN is an outstanding project of the organiser, “Taksirat” in which they fully and solely invest their capacities and their connections in the industry all around Europe. The goal is to enrich the local music sector by bringing the diversity of best practices, up-to-date knowledge and people who will be part of this development in Macedonia and the Balkan region.
WOMEX
Our next partner needs no introduction: WOMEX, the Worldwide Music Expo is the largest event in world music all year round. With performers, delegates and visitors from every corner of the Earth, WOMEX offers an unmatched opportunity to make business connections. The multi-day event travels from city to city each year, and it is complete with a conference, film screenings, a trade fair, and much more. Every year the prestigious WOMEX Artist Award is given to a performer who has left their mark on world music history.
World Music Festival Bratislava
WMFB is an international festival located in Slovakia, dedicated to world music, traditional music, ethno-jazz and fusions with other genres. Its purpose is to offer a varied line-up in events animating the historic centre of the city. The festival is colourful, multicultural and multifaceted, supporting Slovak bands and providing them with room to perform at showcases, and also presenting top world music performers and projects from abroad. The programme also contains concerts, dance performances, workshops, films and more accompanying events.
Saules Muzika Festival
International Sun music festival-showcase is dedicated to world, folk, instrumental, traditional, ethno music among other genres. The festival’s aim is to present emerging local and foreign artists to Lithuanian public. The festival consists not only of musical performances, but also includes local community by hosting various educations, masterclasses, discussions and presentations related to world music.
Folkest
Folkest is an Italian festival incapable of standing still: it is curious about the world and about the artistic experiences from all around the globe. They want to share these experiences with conviction and consistency. Folkest is also a workshop open all year round, often featuring wide-ranging collaborations between artists. Folkest is also the holder of a national competition, Premio Alberto Cesa divided into seven regional selections in Italy. The award dedicated to artists who have left an indelible mark on music and society during their artistic career.
Czech Music Crossroads
The Czech Music Crossroads event is a showcase festival and conference, located on the gigantic ground of a once functional steel factory, in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Featuring music from the Central European region and beyond and inviting expert delegates from all around the world, the award-winning Czech Music Crossroads festival is a unique hub for world and folk musicians, and a real meeting place for world music professionals.
A to Jazz Festival
The International A to JazZ Festival is a remarkable part of the cultural life of Sofia, Bulgaria. Their mission is to spread and promote jazz and improvised music among young people. Founded in 2011 by a young and highly motivated team, with the exclusive support of Sofia Municipality and America for Bulgaria Foundation, the festival traditionally marks the beginning of summer, presenting the best of jazz and beyond artists in the beautiful South park of Sofia city. Every year, the festival park welcomes over 40,000 people with world class headliners.
Tallinn Music Week
Tallinn Music Week is a multi-genre festival of unique talent across Europe and beyond with diverse genres from experimental electronica to classical. The Estonian festival welcomes the audience in the best venues and clubs of Tallinn. Attended by 20,000 visitors and 1,000 industry professionals, TMW is the key networking event for musicians and music industry professionals of the Nordic-Baltic region and across Europe, with a track record for helping emerging acts break into the international scene.
Hide & Seek Festival
Hide & Seek Festival, organised by the Belgian Muziekpublique, looks for the most unusual places in Brussels and turns them into concert venues. Muziekpublique is a specialist in traditional music from all corners of the world, urging visitors to leave their comfort zone. The event takes festival-goers to unexpected places such as a Freemason temple, a famous soap making manufactory or even a wall climbing hall. This event will surely surprise even those who know Brussels inside out.
Méra World Music Festival
Mera, located close to Cluj-Napoca, Romania, is a meeting place for people, music, different cultures and stories. It’s a festival that the people of Mera are proud of and that arouses the curiosity of visitors. Their main goal is to show the magic of the Kalotaszeg region to the world, while bringing bits of the whole world into the backyards of Mera villagers.
Pannonica Festival
Pannonica is a cultural showcase of the Polish Nowy Sącz region and an affirmation of the diversity, multiculturalism and richness of cultures of the new Europe. It takes place in the charming Poprad valley, on the historic migration route from south to the north of Europe. Pannonica is a place to meet and celebrate the living heritage and nature. It is an authentic, multidisciplinary, non-commercial melting pot full of energy, brings together a community of enthusiasts of “Pannonian” culture in its many varieties; Hungarian, Balkan, Gypsy and Carpathian.
Waves Vienna
Waves Festival is an annual showcase festival and conference that covers the entire Central and Eastern European region and takes place in Vienna in September. Every year, the Austrian Waves Festival welcomes two countries as special guests. True to the motto “East Meets West”, the focus countries represent East and West. There is a focus on acts from these countries in the live programme while the Waves Festival Conference devotes a part of its programme to the respective music markets and scenes of these two countries.
Mercat de Música Viva de Vic
The Mercat de Música Viva de Vic (MMVV) is a professional meeting point that brings together professionals from the Catalan, national and international music industry. MMVV serves as a showcase for new music projects and allowing the sharing of knowledge and experiences between professionals in the sector. With a clear international focus, Autonomous Communities, Associations and the Catalan and state Institutions create the ideal conditions to be a reference point for the present and the future of the live music industry.
MENT
MENT Ljubljana is one of the leading showcase festivals and music conferences in Central and Eastern Europe and the largest event of its kind in the region. It is an award-winning festival of music discoveries, facilitating, in symbiosis with the conference, the presentation of music performers from all over Europe in front of international music professionals and audiences.
Babel Music XP
Babel Music XP international forum is positioning Marseille and the surrounding region as the economic and cultural epicenter of the world’s contemporary music industry. The event consists of a trade fair and a festival open to the general public, featuring an official selection of international artists from a call for entries. Babel Music XP aims to be an international event serving the general interest, contributing to the revival of an industry to keep its finger on the pulse of the world’s musical creation.
SHIP Festival
SHIP is not a festival where you come to hear bands you already love, it’s a place where you fall in love with bands you’ll hear and see for the first time. Located in the photogenic coastal town of Sibenik, the festival hosts the annual celebration of mainland Europe’s finest sounds and selections it has to offer. The festival is a celebration of music by night and a conference that sprawls across the city by day. SHIP is a celebration of rising talent, established professionals and a multitude of informative panels for attendees to gain a better understanding of the music industry.
Napoli World / Musiconnect Italy
Napoli World / Musiconnect Italy is a Showcase Festival and Professional Meet-up organized by ITALIAN WORLD BEAT. Our main goals are the development of relationships between national and international cultural operators through multiple networking activities aimed at training and sharing professional experiences, and furthermore the promotion and creation of connection opportunities with cultural operators by consolidating pre-existing collaborations and cultural exchanges and stimulating new ones.
Fira B!
Fira B! is the music and performing arts showcase festival and conference of the Balearic Islands. It aims at contributing to the professionalization of the arts sector in the region and presenting the most recent creations of its artists, as well as other outstanding proposals from other countries and regions. It also intends to promote networks of exchange between professionals, at a national and international level. It features more than 50 showcases of all styles of music, with a very strong accent on traditional, folk and global music, and more than 20 performing arts shows.
SoAlive Music Conference
SOAlive Music Conference is dedicated to working towards a wider inclusion of music professionals and artists from South East Europe. By promoting dialogue and creating networks, the conference acts as a catalyst for nurturing and promoting SEE artists, fostering their integration and representation within the EU’s vibrant and diverse musical landscape.
UPBEAT Associated Partners
Avant Festival
AVANT is a boutique festival aiming to enhance South Italy”s beauties and traditions through music. The goal is to generate long.standing memories and bonds for spectators, artists, stakeholders and partners, through a programme of live music, outdoor tours, food & wine tastings, capacity building and sustainability activities.
Imaterial
IMATERIAL celebrates our shared heritage: music, stories, images, the tangible and intangible treasures humans recognize themselves in, all across the globe. It conveys the depths of heritage in an inspiring and hands-on manner, with flamenco, Kurdish songs and Greek electronica, concerts set in the city’s opera hall and visits to archeological sites.
Goulash Disko Festival
Goulash Disko Festival was the first ever crowdfunded music festival, and became, over the years, a boutique, DIY gathering of 1500+ international music lovers. The festival has been mostly representing genres rooted in the global underground, and you’ll find there gypsy punk, latintronics or Bollywood funk, but also dub, trip hop, jazz or jungle. Well known artists and emerging talents are both invited, to showcase as many different cultures and genres as possible. Beside music, Goulash Disko also has a social impact on the village where it takes place by bringing art and culture.
ESTAM World Music Festival
The ESTAM World Music Festival, a captivating production of the Student’s Cultural Center Kragujevac, Serbia, is a dynamic intersection where music surpasses borders, and cultures connect souls. From its inception, ESTAM has been a fearless pioneer, spotlighting progressive and daring world music projects, emanating from the rich Balkan region and beyond. Each edition unveils commissioned, original, and collaborative projects, forming a melting pot of creativity that echoes globally.
One Caucasus
One Caucasus is an interdisciplinary festival and a long-term borderland program that first took a place in Georgia in 2014. The aim of the festival is to create a safe and inspirational space for youth from the Caucasus region. Every August the festival brings talented musicians, activists, artists, architects, educators and filmmakers from all over the world to the small, picturesque village of Tserakvi located in the borderland of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. This largest free entry festival in Georgia is often called “The Woodstock of Caucasus” and “the most inspirational festival in Caucasus”.
Mumush Festival
MUMUSH is not just a festival, it is a community in growth. It is a vision of a world we build together with nature. It is a place for self-expression & conversation. A place for freedom and creativity. We aim to provide a space where each of us can find and repaint our inner Mumush and use it to promote awareness, acceptance & sustainability. A place where we can let go of our fears together to change ourselves & our future. We want to celebrate change & creativity through good vibes & good music, workshops, jams, conversation & chill.
Polja Festival
Polja is a non-profit, sustainable festival and “music colony”, founded in the spirit of collective action. It is organized by a community of artists, cultural activists, and enthusiasts gathered around the idea of bringing artists of traditional and modern folklore and experimental music to the local audience, seeking to create a perfect balance between tradition and modernity in the unique rural and natural environment. This distinct festival also has an educational aspect, looking to make connections between the traditional and modern musical forms and their further development in the age of digital technology.
Trefpunt Festival
Trefpunt was created by the late Walter De Buck, folk singer and sculptor from Ghent, as a meeting point for artists, writers, academics and left wing thinkers. In 1970 he started the Gentse Feesten (Ghent Festivities) in front of his macrobiotic restaurant / art gallery, which grew out into one of the biggest city festivals in Europe (1.7 million people over 10 days in 2024). Trefpunt Festival is the core, the soul, the biggest and most diverse organizer of the 10-day festival, and programs more than 300 acts: local and international artists in world music, jazz, folk, pop, rock and hiphop, as well as street theatre, circus, dance, visual arts and debates.
Music Meeting Festival
Cutting right across styles, genres and cultures, Music Meeting Festival has been providing a platform for over 35 years for the world’s best artists: musicians who have rarely or never performed in the Netherlands, with new projects or in special line-ups. During the festival weekend, Park Brakkenstein and De Lindenberg in Nijmegen are traditionally the setting for musical encounters, with over thirty concerts spread over three days.
MARÉ Festival
From the World Heritage City of Santiago de Compostela,
MARÉ promotes a unique artistic encounter that creates a
map of connections. This map centers on cultural diversity,
social inclusion, feminism, sexual diversity, local communities, and environmental sustainability. Through this festival, we aim to discover new artistic proposals and foster unprecedented collaborations among invited artists. MARÉ also features a professional meeting with a particular focus on the social value of music and culture. This component includes various programs such as concerts, business meetings, talks, conferences, pitching sessions, workshops, and mentoring sessions.
Sicily Music Conference
Sicily Music Conference is the first international music conference held in Sicily, and entirely dedicated to music and the sector’s supply chain on the Sunny Mediterranean Island. From live events to copyrights and related rights in music, from large-scale events to boutique festivals, from streaming platforms to new promotional strategies and artificial intelligence tools. Their mission is to give focus on connecting music ecosystems in the Mediterranean area with each other, fostering shared learning and mutual growth
Valmiermuiža Ethnomusic Festival
The Valmiermuiža Ethnomusic Festival is the most ambitious ethnomusical event in Latvia – one of the few annual events whose main emphasis is on placing Latvian traditional culture in both a modern and international context – world music. The main message of the festival is about the quality of life that can be achieved by living and celebrating in harmony with one’s environment – both with the local, natural environment, as well as the cultural environment and music, from which it is possible to draw inspiration for a modern, open and tasteful lifestyle.
Todo Mundo World Music Festival
The Todo Mundo Festival was launched in Belgrade in 2012 with the idea of providing the local audience with several days of enjoyment of world music, diverse and attractive, coming from different parts of the planet. The music program of the festival includes artists from all sides of the globe, always with the idea of promoting something interesting, different, unusual. In addition to various musical traditions and fusions coming from around the world, Todo Mundo is always open to local artists, with the desire to support and introduce them to guests from abroad.
