Release Athens director toasts record edition
Release Athens general director John Mirabitas has spoken to IQ about the recent edition of the festival, which drew a record number of attendees.
The seventh instalment of the concert series saw 140,000 fans flock to Water Plaza in Kallithea across 10 days in June and July.
The most-attended shows were headlined by Judas Priest, Pulp and The Offspring, each exceeding 17,000 fans.
Megadeth, Parov Stelar, Black Pumas, Vasilis Papakonstantinou, Cannons, The Smile, Thievery Corporation, Massive Attack, Duran Duran and Behemoth were also top-billing acts at Release Athens 2024.
“It was a complete success and in line with our sincere motto of making memories together,” says Mirabitas.
This year’s edition saw a “huge increase” in demand for combo tickets (2 or 3 days), which are the best-value tickets and “essentially reward anyone who wants to attend more than one day of the festival,” says the general director.
“I strongly believe that we remain the festival with the lowest prices in Greece,” he adds.
The success of this year’s edition was hard-earned, with organisers having to overcome a myriad of challenges, including rising fees, extreme weather and a lack of available headliners.
“Compared to 2023 we are facing an average increase of 7% in local production costs,” Mirabitas tells IQ. “However, the most significant increase has been in accommodation expenses where the rate increase reached 25%.
“From our understanding, there are not enough “global headliners” to meet the demand of the festival lineups”
“Climate instability is also having an impact in our country, especially with the recent summer heatwave, although this is probably a preferred situation compared to the heavy storms or other extreme weather conditions that we noticed in several festivals abroad.”
Organisers also grappled with the widely reported ‘headliner drought‘ which many believe is partly due to a boom in arena and stadium tours.
“From our understanding, there are not enough ‘global headliners’ to meet the demand of the festival lineups,” says Mirabitas.
“Most of the megastars are doing their own tours in contract with huge corporations, while festival promoters are competing to book the rest of the limited number of artists. So either way, booking fees are constantly rising, headliners are hard to find and there is definitely a lot of risk involved for the festival organiser.”
Fortunately, Release Athens is no stranger to overcoming challenges, as the festival was born during “difficult conditions” in Greece in 2016.
“We truly believed – and still believe – in the liberating power of music, despite the challenging times in which the festival was born,” the general director says. “This liberation had to do with all kinds of stereotypes, but also with the pessimism that had taken over the citizens of Athens (and not only) at this particular moment in our modern history.
“Despite the difficult conditions that prevailed at that time in our country, we knew we could do several things differently from the local competition. Prioritising the quality of production at all levels and above all, striving to provide the best overall experience for all our fans – something we believe we have achieved from our humble beginnings to this day.”
Release Athens is promoted by Fuzz Productions, which also operates Athens venues The Fuzz Club and Floyd Live Music Venue.
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Fuzz Productions opens new venue in Athens
Greece-based Fuzz Productions has opened a new 2,300-capacity indoor live music venue in the heart of downtown Athens, called Floyd.
Fuzz Productions already run two venues – Fuzz Club in Athens and Fix Factory of Sound in Thessaloniki – as well as the Release Athens festival and the Greek edition of Europavox Festival.
Forthcoming concerts at the venue include Epica, Black Country New Road, Magnetic Fields, Parov Stelar and Emperor
The company says its newest venue boasts top-notch features including a fantastic stage and a high-tech sound and lighting setup and that, along with the capacity, it fills “a crucial gap” in Athens’s music landscape.
Floyd opened in October with a series of back-to-back sold-out shows from acts including Blind Guardian.
Forthcoming concerts at the venue include Epica, Black Country New Road, Magnetic Fields, Parov Stelar and Emperor.
This week, Fuzz Productions announced Pulp as a headliner for Release Athens 2024, set to return to Plateia Nerou in Faliro next June.
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