Off Festival 2025

[Specta]

Hello,

 

I'm thinking of going to this polish festival for the first time this summer.

Looking for do's and don'ts and some tips from people already been there.

How busy it goes, bars and food, transport and good tips for accomodation.

Basically everything you think might be usefull for a first timer on this or any other polish festival.

 

Line up for the moment: James Blake, Fontaines DC, MJ Lenderman, Kneecap, Geordie Greep and more.

 

Thanks in advance.

[pete76]

[fightoffyour]

Los Campesinos! just announced! Do they sell day tickets? Kraftwerk, Kneecap, and LC! on the Friday is awesome.

[Specta]

they will. but closely to the festival.

last year they did at the end of may.

 

great line up so far. a bit of everything stylistically. and a great mixture of talent, lc! just the cherry on top of it.

[Specta]

 

So, this is pretty much the whole line up bar 4-5 local acts that needs to fill up the program.

Super happy that i decided to give this festival a go exactly this year.

They are always putting impressive lineups but catching LC! is just doing it a little extra for me.

Honestly, this type of diverse and curious programming is something you can see very rarely on the corporate festival circuit anymore. Kudos to the Artur Rojek (local alternative music legend) who's still producing this little heaven.

Here's a clashfinder for anybody who's might be going.

 

https://clashfinder.com/s/offfestival2025/

[fightoffyour]

Anyone going today? It's pretty hard to get any info about the exact location. And the street names on the festival map don't appear to exist in the location stated. Pretty weird but I guess just head here and hope for the best?

 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/EgL1FqBYHQinXGkw5

[Specta]

A bit of a review on those three days spent in Katowice.

 

First the positives:

- the crowd - very enthusiastic and really a great mixture of young and old. i think people going there really knows their stuff music wise and even some of the bands that might not get a big stage and big response from people on bigger festivals, they really get on off festival.

- the vibe - i thought this was the best part. people were super chill. you can see lots of people just chilling picnic style, young kids wondering around with their parents and at the same time front of stages there were moshpits and stagedivings. so basically you can find something for everybody.

- line up and the music - sound was great on all stages. also liked that basically all acts were playing for a full hour (headliners for 80 mins) witch on some bigger festivals is a rarety this days.

- food and drink - i thought those were reasonably priced and with a good variety. but it might get busy inbetween acts and not being able to take food or drinks outside the designated zone might get a bit frustrating if you in a hurry to catch some band.

 

The bands - great sets from Los Camp!, Kneecap, Fontaines DC, Soft Play, MJ Lenderman. All my favorites really came strong and the crowds loved them. Also some nice additions on the smaller stages and some good local bands aswell.

 

Few stuff that they really need to put some work into:

- wc situation - there are just way too little amount of toilets on the site. and not only that but the biggest amount of them are located very inconviniently on the main route through the two main stages witch creates some bottlenecks. not having urinals also is not helping and waiting time can get pretty big. so they need to think about more points and more toilets in general.

- organization - this was mostly okay beside the first day. the entrance is pretty narrow so when more people are coming to collect the wristbands it might get very crowded and messy. not many barriers and worst of all not much info led to people queueing while people were just going down the road and straight to the entrance thus queue were not moving and people missed some of the first acts.

 

Overall, a great festival. You can have a good time with the bands you like with some nice people around you. You can see that people really loves the festival and care about it. It's not just some corporate event created to generate money. The city is nice, it's pretty easy and cheap to get a nice accommodation if you're not using the festival's campsite. So, i would totally recommend the experience and advise on people checking it out. We need more from those carefully curated festivals made with love from people who knows their stuff.