10 — 12 July 2025
Pohoda on the Ground will introduce ten Slovak clubs during the five days of its duration.

Pohoda on the Ground will introduce ten Slovak clubs during the five days of its duration.

During the five days, Pohoda on the Ground will bring dozens of bands and artists to the Trenčín Airport. One of the leitmotifs of the festival is the support of the Slovak club scene. It will be people from ten clubs across the whole of Slovakia to prepare the majority of programme. The curators of the two club stages of Pohoda on the Ground are Hangár, Bombura, Fuga, Diera do sveta, Stromoradie, 69, Collosseum, WAX, Záhrada, and Hájovňa. We will also bring a tram at the airport T3 - kultúrny prostriedok , a cultural vehicle, which will make a stopover here before moving to a new location.

07. May 2021

“With the capacity that is comparable to its beginnings and emphasis on the club scene, Pohoda is returning to the ground. Clubs are essential for music, creating a year-round background for musicians and local communities. We enjoy creating a different form of Pohoda and playing with space and programme; especially we are very much looking forward to meeting visitors soon at the Trenčín Airport”, says Michal Kaščák from the Pohoda team.

Pohoda will mainly manage the main stage with focus on foreign bands, while the programme, unlike the programmes of clubs, will not change within individual days. Announced are already first names: British experimental-rock bands Black Midi, Black Country, New Road, post-punk Dry Cleaning, and grime punk rockers Pengshui. We will have Georgian band Murman Tsuladze who will arrived from the French capital and the Congolese band Fulu Miziki will show how garbage can be turned into a unique artistic statement, energy, and great fun. The festival will open with a unique gala performance by the music-working group of Vrbovskí víťazi and the Chamber Orchestra of the City of Trenčín.

The non-musical program will also be strongly present. Visual stage will use a similar curating approach to the one applied for music, and will offer space for realisations to cultural centres: Platform 1-12 Topoľčany, New Synagogue Žilina, Peripheral Centres Dúbravica, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Homeland Studies Museum Galanta and every day a different performance will be presented by Transart Communication – Kassak Centre for Intermedia Creativity “K2IC” from Nové Zámky.

Pohoda on the Ground will also welcome the contemporary circus performed by 13 students of the French circus school Ésacto'Lido. The show, which will be created in the coming weeks, will be directed by Christophe Lafrague. Visitors can expect curious performances with a mix of juggling, balancing, acrobatics, dance, and pieces on Chinese poles, trapezes and ropes. Visitors can also look forward to an interesting literary programme, various sports activities (football, skate park), and discussions.

The festival will also include activities that are not possible during the classic Pohoda festivals: for example, visitors will be able to use roller skates, scooters, and boards. They will have at their disposal the entire two-kilometre runway of the Trenčín Airport. Most of the programme will take place in the area where the main stage is usually located, in uniquely designed areas, while some of the programme will take place in the former military radar of the airport. Camping area will be in the heart of the festival (around the place where the sunflowers used to be) and the venue will have a “car camp”, where visitors will be able to park their cars right next to their tents.


CLUBS BY DAYS:

  • 7Thth July: The opening day of the festival will be directed by the new domestic club Hangár from Trenčín and one of the longest-running cultural spaces in our country, Bombura, from Brezno.
  • 8th July: Thursday will be organised by Fuga from Bratislava and the cultural centre from Liptovský Mikuláš, Diera do sveta.
  • 9th July: On Friday, music patterns will be brought to the airport by people of Stromoradie from Prešov and their peers from 69 from Trnava.
  • 10th July: Saturday's programme will delight rockers with the selection of the Collosseum club from Košice and dance music fans with the programme directed by the WAX club from Bratislava.
  • 11th July: The programme of Pohoda on the Ground will conclude on Sunday with a garden-forestry eco-festival presented by Záhrada from Banská Bystrica and Hájovňa from Žilina.

 

PRE-SALE

The programme will be published by the organisers on the websites and social networks of Pohoda and individual clubs gradually for each day from Wednesday up to Sunday next week. The first 1000 tickets for Pohoda on the Ground will be available for exclusive pre-sale in individual clubs on Wednesday, the 12th May. The online pre-sale in the Pohoda shop will then start at www.pohodafestival.sk/en on the 17th May 2021.

 

CAPACITY, DURATION OF THE FESTIVAL AND FURTHER ORGANISATION

The capacity for each day is set at 1000 people, so far including performers and the production staff. On the 17th May, the organisers will start selling 650 tickets for each of the festival days. The festival will open its gates every day at 11:00 am, the programme will start at 3:00 pm and it will end with the traditional welcoming of the sun. It will be necessary to leave the festival grounds by 10:00 am the next day. Multi-day tickets will not be available. If you buy tickets for several days, you will have to leave the premises after each day, go through the gates of the festival again and undergo all the procedures in accordance with the regulations and recommendations in force at that time. The participation of confirmed foreign bands and artists is contractually conditioned by the fact that this will be made possible by the measures valid at the beginning of July in the country from which the band/artist is arriving and the measures valid in Slovakia.

 

MORE ABOUT THE FIRST PUBLISHED NAMES OF POHODA ON THE GROUND

BLACK MIDI

At the start of 2019, Black Midi released only one single 7-eleven. They went to Eurosonic 2019 as the band into which perhaps the greatest expectations were put. In late June, they released their debut Schlagenheim, which brought them a nomination for the prestigious Mercury Prize and fantastic reviews (with an average rating of 82 out of 100 for Metacritic). According to Paste magazine, the album is: “experimental, genre unclassifiable, extremely noisy with exceptional results. Schlagenheim is much more than just special, it is the only one of its kind - a masterpiece.” At the end of May, their second album, Cavalcade, will be released, from which they have already released two singles, "John L" and "Slow", with whom they made it into Pitchfork’s list of the fifty most anticipated albums this spring. You will be able to see their concert thanks to our participation in the European Talent Exchange Program.

 

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD

“Rediscovering the joy of virtuosity in an exciting, packed-out show.” That is how The Times described the next performers of Pohoda on the Ground – the young London-based band Black Country, New Road. According to the newspaper, they belong to the new wave of young underground bands that have made focusing on first-class performance of instrumental music popular again, along with Black Midi and Squid.

In their songs, colossal metal rims mangle with frenetic jazz freakouts and occasional film noir motifs are motored into an urgent razor-tight rhythmic section. Then strings, saxophone, flute, improvisation, urgent vocals of frontman Isaac Wood passing into the preaching passages of the spoken word. At the beginning of February, they released their debut For the First Time, which was given the highest possible rating by The Guardian, The Observer and NME. The New Musical Express described it as follows: “Their peak may be years away yet, but this is still some of the most exciting music you’ll hear until then; I’m not sure what more you could ask of a debut." You will be able to see their concert thanks to our participation in the European Talent Exchange Program.

 

DRY CLEANING

Dry Cleaning is a post-punk band from South London that is often likened to Joy Division or Sleaford Mods. The NME ranked them among the 100 major new names of 2020. In early April, they released their debut New Long Leg, which immediately rocketed among the top rated albums released this year. Pitchfork ranked it among Best New Music and writes in the review that the album full of surreal images, bizarre obsessions, and sense memories. The cumulative effect of Florence Shaw’s narration is inexplicably wonderful.

 

PENGSHUI

Pengshui are a London trio of experienced musicians whose bulldozer riffs and aggressive rap blur lines between genres such as grime, hardcore and punk. It was the combination of rapping at a fast pace of 140bpm with a punk approach that brought them recognition on the British scene very quickly. “A conference, delegates with name tags, a concert in the afternoon. Nothing pleasant for any band. Three big guys enter the stage and manage to turn everything upside down, the conference boredom is forgotten and for a while everyone works like in a well-run club – after the concert, both them and the delegates are sweaty. PENGSHUi are an extraordinary band, thundering in a trio like a massive orchestra of a roller bearings manufacturing plant.” said director Pohoda on the Ground, Michal Kaščák.

 

FULU MIZIKI

Fulu Miziki means “music from the garbage” in the local Lingala language. The collective of these multidisciplinary artists creates instruments from waste and tirelessly discovers new possibilities of sound in them. They also make original masks and costumes from thrown away items. Under the varied visual-performative execution of the concert and afro-futurist masks lays a strong pan-African message of peace and a reference to the bad ecological situation in their home country and around the world.

 

MURMAN TSULADZE

Murman Tsuladze brings together French electronics, African rhythms and their Georgian roots. Last year they released a video for 'La Flemme de Danser' which, according to The Quietus, “captures their natural humour and their rebellious spirit as they take to the streets of Paris to dance their way between police and protesters.“ The magazine adds: “Murman Tsuladze are the first port of call for Fat White Family when they’re looking for a good time in Paris.” You will be able to see their concert thanks to our participation in the European Talent Exchange Program.

 

VRBOVSKÍ VÍŤAZI A KOMORNÝ ORCHESTER MESTA TRENČÍN

An extraordinary world premiere took place in one of the hangars at the Trenčín Airport during Pohoda in the Air—the Chamber Orchestra of the City of Trenčín played together with the Jobus brothers the works of Vrbovskí vížazi in arrangements by Slavo Solovic. Moreover, with this concert, Vrbovskí víťazi celebrated the 20th anniversary of the band's founding and the Chamber Orchestra of the city of Trenčín celebrated the 30th anniversary of its establishment. Unfortunately, only Lord Chaiman (the rocking horse) could personally observe this parade with his plastic eyes. This time, this exceptional connection can be witnessed by visitors to Pohoda on the Ground at the Trenčín Airport.

 

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