AI has no place here: what will surprise the main summer music festivals

A hot summer is promised not only by weather forecasters, but also by the poster of upcoming music festivals. VK Fest will begin: on June 7, it will be held in Kazan, and then it will continue in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Afisha's Picnic will also meet music lovers there. Wild Mint will be held in the Tula region, the organizers of which spoke out against AI. The season will be closed with powerful guitar riffs on the iconic "Humpback". The IV Musical Rock Festival "Legend" will be held there at the end of August. About where to listen to good music in the summer — in the Izvestia guide.

Make way for the young

VK Fest, which has become one of the key events of the summer season, will again be held in several cities. The organizers will give the start on June 7 in Kazan, and on July 4 he will arrive in St. Petersburg.‑St. Petersburg, to the 300th Anniversary Park, where concerts will run for two days, and will end on July 18-19 at VDNH in Moscow.

In 2025, the event entered the Russian Book of Records for the number of artists online, and this time it will confirm the status of a multi-genre event where you can hear representatives of pop music, alternative music, and rap. The headliners of the new season include Zivert, t.A.T.u, IOWA, Vadim Samoilov (Agatha Christie), Dora, JONY, Baby Tape & Toxi$, PIZZA group, Tesla Boy, Boulevard Depo, ICEGERGERT.

The culmination of the show in Moscow and St. Petersburg‑St. Petersburg will be the performance of a secret guest — the name is kept secret until the last one.

Closer to nature

Not far from the village of Bunyrevo in the Tula region, the Wild Mint art camp will host a space for those who want to take a break from the ubiquitous artificial intelligence for several days ‑ from June 19 to 21. One of the venues will be an analog stage where only live music will be played, as opposed to the growth created by algorithms.

— I am an old Believer, and I believe that music is a means of communication between people, — explained Andrey Klyukin, the general producer of the festival. — In this communication, the author shares his love, pain, sadness, joy, his thoughts and worldview. And I refuse to believe that machine-made, digital, cold imitation of music can replace a feeling living heart. In the days of AI, a live music festival is already a manifesto.

In total, the venue will have eight stages, which will host more than 130 concerts. The Lamp chamber space will be built for acoustic performances.

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— The cast of Wild Mint participants this year is incredible: all genres are represented — from pop music such as Christmas Tree and IOWA, to alternative music such as Manapart and Psyche, — said Andrey Klyukin. — As always, there is a lot of indie music: "Bond with a button", Rushana, "Dictaphone", Polnalyubvi. On a separate electronic stage, The Hatters will present their new project "Electronics", and the iconic DJ Groove will perform. Legendary artists will also present their shows: Dancing Minus, Nike Borzov, Neuromonk Feofan.

One of the innovations of this year is the wristband payment system, which will work in the absence of the Internet.

Lovers of natural locations are also expected in Udmurtia. In 50 km from Izhevsk, in the village of Lagunovo, on the Flyaway Field, the YLETAI rock music festival will be held from July 8 to 12. More than 100 participants will gather there. AlisA, Vyacheslav Butusov, Picnic, Aria, Bravo, Vadim Samoilov, Knyazz, Lumen, Gorshenev, Seryoga, Surganova and Orchestra and other famous rock bands will light up ‑ five days of pure rock drive, where you can set up your tent for free.

"Bravo" reunion

The guests of another regular summer Afisha Picnic festival will enjoy not just a musical weekend, but an open-air performance with the atmosphere of a luna park, attractions, movie decorations and music. It starts on June 20 in Moscow at the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve. The main sensation will be the reunion of the Bravo group with Valery Syutkin. For the first time in 28 years, the musicians will perform "Vasya", "Stylish Orange Tie" and "Road to the Clouds" together. LSP, OG Buda, Mayot, hehehe, OZERA, Felix Bondarev's indie band RSAC and dozens of new wave artists will also take the stage.

They will continue on August 8 in St. Petersburg on Yelagin Island. Afisha's Picnic will bring together the main characters of the modern stage. FEDUK and SLAVA MARLOW will present their sets. A separate intrigue will be the St. Petersburg performance of the Malback duo. & Suzanne is the first joint show in six years. Sergey Bobunets, the creator of Semantic Hallucinations, will come to the Northern Capital with nostalgic hits.

— People come for the holiday, so I am a supporter of concerts that take place in one breath and are capable of surprising, — Sergey Bobunets shared with Izvestia. — The guests of the festival will hear all the golden hits — the best should sound!

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The return of the "Legend"

On June 19, Ural Music Night (also known as the Ural Music Night) will be held for the first time without its ideological inspirer and creator, Evgeny Gorenburg. The producer passed away on April 22 at the age of 66. Since 2015, the festival has remained a point of attraction for fans of good music of various genres: from classical to rock, from opera to hip-hop. The special feature of the festival is that the stages are scattered all over Yekaterinburg: in theaters and museums, in squares and parks, in shopping malls and on pedestrian streets. Traditionally, it ends at dawn on Oktyabrskaya Square, which the locals simply call "drama" (there is a drama theater nearby), with the song "Ray of the Golden Sun".

The Sverdlovsk Rock Club celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. A gift for the guests of the Ural Music Night will be a concert by fellow countrymen, the legendary Chaif group. Yulia Savicheva, Sergey Bobunets, the PIZZA group, Smeshbend, NLO, Laud, SKY RAE, Sova, and Yagoda are also in the line-up. Classical music fans will enjoy a special program dedicated to the anniversaries of outstanding composers — Sergei Prokofiev, Mikael Tariverdiev, Alexander Zatsepin and Dmitry Shostakovich.

The rock festival named after D. K. Gorbunov, Legend, will become a powerful final chord of the outgoing summer. It was launched in 2022 by REN TV and Legenda Production and has since gone an impressive way: from a musical event in the walls of the House of Culture, it has grown into a grandiose open‑air in the heart of Moscow, where those for whom "Humpback" is not an empty sound gather. At one time, it was here that the Moscow Rock Laboratory was located, and music lovers were hunting for records in the market of the same name nearby.

The fourth Legend Festival returns to the territory of the iconic Gorbushka. On August 29 and 30, fans will see performances by Vadim Samoilov (Agatha Christie), FPG, Kalinov Most, Alexander F. Sklyar and the band Va‑Bank, Earrings and many others. A more alternative scene will be presented by "Operation Plasticine", "Yorsh", Distemper. The line-up will expand.