The programme of the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival’s online festival ends on Sunday, but VirtualKaustinen’s website Kaustinen2020.net will be open until the end of July. All videos and other content can be viewed there – for free.
The VirtualKaustinen site was visited more than 123,000 times between 13 and 18 July. The most popular content by far were the folk music music videos provided by folk musicians all over the country and the world. About 45 folk music videos were released every day, totalling to more than 300 videos.
In addition to Finland, the programme was viewed almost 10,000 times in 50 countries during the six days. Most views per country came from the United States and Japan, followed by Sweden and Germany.
– Pro Kaustinen ry decided to organize the festival online as much as possible in the same way as normal. I believe that Kaustinen will stand out as a significant free event among this summer’s online festivals, says Ira Korkala, chair of the board of Pro Kaustinen ry.
Valtteri Valo, Executive Director of the festival, has calculated that if you watch the entire folk music programme, it will take 32 hours 2 minutes 50 seconds. The total duration of all videos is 46 hours 47 minutes.
– The folk musicians brought the festival alive once again! They filmed themselves and produced 350 new videos. These videos will still be available on the playlists of the KaustinenFMF channel on YouTube even after July, Valtteri Valo says.
The next Kaustinen Folk Music Festival will be held in the festival park in Kaustinen a year from now, 12 – 18 July 2021.