And here comes the annual voting for the European Festival Awards. We are nominated in the Best Medium-Sized Festival category. We will be thankful for every vote, that will help make Grape festival even more prominent on the European festival map. If you enjoyed our festival this year and would like to support us, you can do so HERE: https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/TVYCDSV

Dear friends, we have an important message for you. It is long, but try to read it all. You have certainly noticed that this year we prepared the festival under difficult and special conditions. Since May, Piešťany Airport operates charter flights to Turkey and Egypt for vacationers from Slovakia. For 2019, we agreed with the owner that problematic flights would be redirected to Bratislava and the festival would pay all the costs associated with it. It was the only solution at the moment and we would like to thank the head of the Trnava region for helping us last fall as this year was already endangered.

Despite the limitations (landing of the plane on Sunday a week before the festival), we managed to both build the festival on time and to hand it over on Thursday the next week after its end as was agreed. This was one of the conditions for further negotiations with the majority owner of the airport - Trnava VÚC - about the future of the festival at Piešťany airport.

Unfortunately, at our meeting last week, we learned that that new flights to more destinations are planned. Therefore, the festival cannot be held at this location any more, even under this year's conditions.

New flights are not yet agreed, but we have been advised to look for a new place, with the chances of staying being minimal. For us, of course, this is very bad news, because moving such a big festival is not easy and, unfortunately, in Slovakia, there are not many spots to choose from. Last but not least, we have been connected with the town of Piešťany for ten years, and we consider it as an integral part of the festival. This makes it all the more difficult to accept this news.

Piešťany was in all respects an ideal place for organizing the festival with countless advantages for visitors, performers, and organizers. At the same time, Grape also returned the borrowed with a considerable financial benefit to the city, local businessmen and job opportunities for people from all over the region. Not to mention that it also made the city visible on the European festival map.

During the decade, Piešťany had entertained visitors from 22 countries around the world and 158 foreign artists from 4 continents performed. We managed to get among the top 10 small festivals in Europe twice and last year we had the opportunity to present the Grape Festival to the most important people of the music industry at a major conference in London - International Festival Forum. It was all the more important because we were chosen as the only European festival.

In any case, we also understand the situation of the VÚC, as making the airport "flying" again and healing it financially at least a little was their priority. Nevertheless, it is a pity that we did not fit into these plans. But we have become accustomed to the fact that culture in Slovakia regularly pulls for a shorter end and usually nobody takes it too seriously. We will, therefore, hope that this decision will benefit the airport and that Slovak vacationers will enjoy it at least as much as the people who came to the festival.

So we now have no choice but to look for a new space that best suits our and your criteria to organize the event at an as high standard as possible. However, we believe that if we find it, we will make an even better festival for you than ever before. Keep your fingers crossed for us and wait for the new info. Thank you for a nice 10 years in Piešťany and we believe in even more beautiful years in a new place.

See you in 2020

The Red Army by Lousy Auber. Friday, noon. The first performance by the opening of the area at the main gate. Be there!