Liveurope reveals Ukraine Europe Day tribute

Venues association Liveurope has announced the ninth edition of its Europe Day celebrations will be a tribute to Ukraine.

Liveurope founding member Ancienne Belgique is joining forces with Kyiv music venue Atlas to present three emerging Ukrainian artists – Cepasa, Ragapop and The Lazy Jesus – at the 9 May event at the Brussels, Belgium venue’s AB Club.

Attendees will be invited to make a voluntary donation, with all proceeds going directly to the Music Saves UA humanitarian appeal. Each €10 collected will finance one humanitarian box providing food for one person for an entire week. The boxes will be mainly distributed in Kherson, the biggest city liberated by Ukrainian forces since the start of the war.

“Since 2015, we have built on this public holiday to bring Europe closer to our audiences by organising our own Europe Day festivities,” says Ancienne Belgique’s general manager Tom Bonte. “This year, we naturally came to focus on Ukraine, as its scene is great source of inspiration for us all.”

“We hope this is just the beginning of a lasting relationship with Liveurope and its venues”

Before the concerts begin, Liveurope, an EU-backed association of 22 music venues, will host a panel discussion with key Ukrainian music professionals to discuss their challenges on the ground and their hopes for the future, as well as the importance of European cooperation. The conversation will be followed by invite-only networking open to cultural operators, representatives of the European institutions and media professionals.

“We hope this is just the beginning of a lasting relationship with Liveurope and its venues,” adds Vlad Yaremchuk, Atlas’ artistic director and Music Saves UA partnership manager. “We are fighting this war for our very European futures, and the support we have been receiving shows us that we are not alone. We are touched to host such an event in the heart of Europe in collaboration with a world-renowned venue like Ancienne Belgique.”

The event is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the EU and is endosed by the Cultural Creators Friendship Group, a cross-partisan coalition of 28 members of the European Parliament from six political groups and 14 countries.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.