Finland’s short summer is filled with festival and events. Here are three of the biggest and most popular Finnish festivals this summer: Ruisrock, the Savonlinna Opera Festival and the Pori Jazz festival.
The Ruisrock Festival in Turku
Ruisrock is Finland’s oldest rock festival and celebrates its 40th anniversary this summer. The Ruisrock 2010 line-up includes Ozzy Osbourne, Slash, Belle & Sebastian and a wide range of international and Finnish bands and artists. The festival site is the Ruissalo national park just outside Turku in southwest Finland, and first time visitors are always amazed by the views, and the location of the main stage right by the sea.
The three-day festival attracts some of the biggest crowds in Finland and tickets are often sold out in advance. Ruisrock 2010 takes over Ruissalo from the 9th to the 11th July. The official festival website has more information in English about the lineup, travel to Ruisrock and how to buy tickets.
The Savonlinna Opera Festival
The Savonlinna Opera Festival is one of the most important cultural events in the Finnish summer, and attracts around 60 000 visitors every year. The opera festival is held in the medieval Olavinlinna castle in Savonlinna, a small and picturesque city by the lake Saimaa in eastern Finland. Opera performances and concerts as well as other events are arranged over a period of several weeks.
Visitors can book special opera travel packages that include tickets to an opera performance, travel from Helsinki to Savonlinna and local transport to Olavinlinna, but Savonlinna is also easy to get to independently by train, by bus or by rental car. It is highly recommended that visitors to the Opera also take some time to explore the Saimaa lake district: the largest lake district in Europe.
Finland’s Pori Jazz Festival
The annual Pori Jazz is one of the biggest Finnish festivals and brings one of the best selections of international artist and bands to Finland every year. Much more than a jazz festival, the 2010 event presents Massive Attack, the Gotan Project, Tori Amos, Toto, Jeff Beck and more.
This year’s event, from the 17th to the 25th July, is the 45th Pori Jazz festival. Special festival cruises are arranged from Helsinki to Pori in the southwest part of Finland, and the Jazz Train travels between Helsinki and Pori on Saturday, the 24th of July.
Daily program information, line-up updates, travel information and tickets are available from the official Pori Jazz website.
