Ruisrock will start developing the festival together with young people. The idea is to bring new perspectives to the festival production from young visitors and anticipate upcoming trends better. For this purpose, the festival team is setting up a year-round Ruisrock Jury. Anyone aged 16–24 is welcome to apply.
The Ruisrock Jury will meet with the festival team in workshops to develop and come up with ideas for the various elements of Ruisrock. Areas of development will be decided together, and the goal is that especially the young people themselves would bring their suggestions for improvement to the table. As a result, we may see some new services and features at the festival.
“Ruisrock has always kept up with the times. It is our first priority to create an event that looks like its audience and also appeals to the audience, and we want our visitors to get their voices heard even better in the production of the festival. We want to ensure this by forming a group to help improve our understanding of our young target group. Ruisrock will still be a festival for all age groups and we are not forgetting any of our visitors, but to guarantee the vitality of the festival, it is especially important to know what new, future festival generations think and what is relevant to them. The Ruisrock Jury is a brand-new way of including the audience in what we do, and as far as we know, we are the first Finnish festival to disclose our behind-the-scenes activities to the audience and open them up for discussion like this”, says Ruisrock Promoter Mikko Niemelä.
The idea is to compile the Ruisrock Jury from a diverse group of young people from all across Finland, and previous knowledge of Ruisrock is not required. The jury members will be paid a compensation for taking part in the workshops. The best ideas will be put into practice at the festival, and the jury members may also be involved in the implementation. In the summer, the members will take part in Ruisrock, which will be held from 9–11 July in Ruissalo, Turku.
“Ruisrock has brought young people together to enjoy music and have fun for already five decades. We believe that there is a demand for the Ruisrock Jury, and our Generation Z visitors want to be actively involved in taking Ruisrock and the Finnish festival culture forward”, says Niemelä.
The workshops are held in Finnish. The application period is open until January 8th. Read more and apply here.
