The wish to organize a real underground music festival, in the land of the Midnight Sun, has existed in the minds of several party crews in all of Scandinavia for decades.
However, to actually reach the region with the phenomena of Midnight Sun, you need to travel far away from the big cities and main regions of Scandinavian peninzula.
The vision of a festival matured and suddenly a new group of friends was brought together, from Norway/Finland/Sweden. This group consisted of "normal working class hippies" with deep connections to the underground electronic music scene.
The group had no funds or financial support when they started to manifest this vision. But after finding the correct location and make the first visits to Værøy, a very optimistic energy was rooted in the group.
Several thousands of working hours later, the first edition of Midnight Sun Festival was a fact. Sunlight 24/7 in one of the hottest summers of the century (in north norway). More then 100 underground artists performed during 6 days and participants from 30 nations enjoyed the raw energy of it. For a short while, a strong feeling of success was felt in the group. However, it didnt last for long. The financial aspect of the festival was not so bright. We had set the ticket prices to adapt accordingly to the original vision. The original vision was always about bringing people from all over the world, not only from Scandinavia. We had adjusted a price on the festival ticket, that was way below "norwegian standard". Even though we had a fantastic crew that spent countless of working-hours without getting paid, it is still the case that Norway is one of the most expencive countries in the world. In addition, the island of Værøy is extremely remote and the logistics is very expencive. Lesson was learned..
So what happened next? Well, the crew decided to try again! Since the festival location is so remote and the work behind is on such a large scale, it was decided that the second edition of Midnight Sun Festival was planned to happen in 2016. (meaning a 2 years break after the 2014 edition)
Everyone who participated the 2016 edition can witness about it's crazyness. 1500 participants from 50 nations experienced another week of dance, joy, laughter, arctic nature.... and a proper storm! Even though we had raised the ticket prices for the 2016 edition, the financial result still wasn't good. The 2016 edition ended with slightly better results then the 2014 edition, but still with a minus...
The total amount of remaining debt after 2 editions of the festival, is $150.000. Since $50.000 is investments from the funders/organizors, what remains as pure debt to creditors is $100.000.
That means that $100.000 should be covered, before the next edition of the festival takes place. Midnight Sun Festival have 27.000 followers on Facebook.
If each one of our followers would donate an average of only $4 per person, or if half of all followers would donate $8 per person, all of the festival's debts could be covered!
Again, your contribution DOES HELP. No donation is too small. Together we will make magic happen again :) Please help us to spread the message!