New showcase festival seeks solution to stalled Finnish metal exports

Metal has been Finland’s main music export for decades.

Internationalisation began in the 1990s, when Waltari, Amorphis and Sentenced started to get foreign record deals and tour the world. In the 2000s, Nightwish, Children of Bodom, HIM and Lordi expanded the scale even further.

Then the winning streak began to fade. In the last ten years, Finland has not had any major new international breakthroughs, despite the fact that the popularity of metal music and the industry’s global turnover have increased at the same time.

Something had to be done. So Nahka Agency, a management and programming agency, and Music Finland, which supports the internationalisation of Finnish music, decided to organise a new showcase festival, Welcome to Finland… Capital of Metal. The professional event focusing on metal music will take place at Tavastia and Semifinal in Helsinki on 22 and 23 May.

“Getting into the repertoire of the big European showcase festivals can be difficult and expensive for people from the far north. That’s why we decided to work with Music Finland and other local industry players to develop a new event,” says Sami Silvennoinen, head of the Nahka Agency and former organiser of the Finnish Metal Expo festival, explaining the need for the festival.

In addition to the local music industry, many European promoters, gig sellers and record company representatives are expected to attend the festival. The public will also be able to buy tickets for the event.

The festival will feature eight up-and-coming domestic heavy music bands with a wide range of styles: Rabbit Cult play Japanese-style pop metal, Cvlt Ov The Svn combine black metal with occult rock, St. Aurora lean towards post-hardcore, Brymir play melodic death metal, and so on.

According to Silvennoinen, the choice of bands was based on topicality, planning and the ability to build an international career.

“It goes without saying that artistic merit is also important. WTF is not about taking the first steps in an artist’s career, but about presenting live bands that are already competent and could be snapped up for an international tour package just like that. No mogul will want to fly to Helsinki again if they had to listen to two days of nothing but numbness the last time they were there.”

In addition to the music, the festival will also include professional discussions and networking events. Panel discussions will include how many metal festivals can fit in one city and what young bands should think about the fact that festivals now focus on comebacks of old bands and supergroups of established artists.

A more detailed programme and timetable for the event can be found on the Nahka Agency website.