Every year, Finland Festival, a non-profit organization dedicated to culture and tourism, ranks the country’s most visited festivals. In 2021, the top 10 chart in ticket sales was topped by the Savonlinna Opera Festival and Pori Jazz, followed by the Helsinki Festival. That year, Ruisrock, the oldest rock music festival in Finland and also one of the oldest festivals in Europe, reported 105 thousand sold tickets. Pori Jazz, an international jazz music festival organized in the city of Pori in western Finland, hit 47.3 thousand in ticket sales. With free concerts, Pori Jazz was also Finland’s number one visitor magnet with nearly 209.3 thousand visitors in 2022. Other festivals without entrance fees also proved popular, such as the Kotka Maritime festival in July and the multi-arts World Village Festival organized in May.
While the Finnish audience is enjoying great variety in the festival and events industry, this trend is expected to become even more important in the future. All major Finnish festivals were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. Many festivals opened their gates again in 2022, while some changed their program to virutal eventes and online live streams.