KILKIM ŽAIBU Ethnic Culture and Extreme Music Festival
THE FESTIVAL
KILKIM ŽAIBU ethnic culture and extreme music festival is the largest and oldest heavy music festival in the Baltic States. Taking place for more than 20 years, it has already earned world-wide recognition among alternative music fans. What makes this festival special is the focus on ethnic culture. The organiser of the event is a non-profit organisation, consisting of enthusiasm-fuelled staff and volunteers. The festival itself takes place in various regions of Lithuania.
KILKIM ŽAIBU ODYSSAY
With years of experience, KILKIM ŽAIBU has been breaking all negative stereotypes about heavy music and fostering a unique, warm, and positive atmosphere. Born in Semigallia in 1999, the event moved to Samogitia ten years later. In 2015, it was included into the list of events of Žagarė as the Lithuanian Capital of Culture, and continued to carry the flag in Samogitia, when the title of the Capital of Culture was awarded to Telšiai. In 2022, as Ukmergė rock’n’rolled into its 690th anniversary, we brought heavy music vibes to this city as well. With positive feedback, the festival stayed in Ukmergė for 2023. Opportunities to get to know a different kind of music and dive into the educational activities, offered by the festival, were also promoted by our partners – Ukmergė District Municipality Administration and Ukmergė Ethnographic Museum.
BRIDGES BETWEEN ALTERNATIVE ART AND TRADITIONS
The festival used to take place during the Summer Solstice for years thus eventually making the Summer Solstice the official KILKIM ŽAIBU date. Cherishing ancient traditions has always been one of the cornerstones of what we do, so hosting the festival during the Summer Solstice has as if brought it all into a new realm of ethnocultural treasures. The Summer Solstice – a very special event in various cultures – is celebrated all over the world. Combining its key aspects and major ancient elements with modern art is something rather, we daresay, unusual.
WHAT MAKES IT UNIQUE
We love creative intrigue and are fully aware that hearing ‘ethnic culture and extreme music’ in one sentence for the first time may sound unbelievable. And only visiting this dual celebration combining two different eras can really convince that these themes actually fit very well. And nobody’s really sure, where one of them ends and the other begins. If this made you surprised, then we’ve succeeded.
THE LITHUANIAN EXTREME MUSIC FORTRESS
The festival offers a rich line-up every year and has already brought such well-known names as Sepultura, Amon Amarth, Venom, Abbath, Sodom, Wardruna, etc. to Lithuania. KILKIM ŽAIBU is particularly fond of the extreme music bands from the Baltic States, providing them with high- quality conditions for their shows. The festival has already proudly hosted the majority of Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian extreme and alternative musicians. We film all performances to provide our participants with quality videos for their music. Extreme music fans are already referring to KILKIM ŽAIBU as the ‘metalhead Christmas’, looking forward the next event booking their vacations and trips from abroad as soon as the current one is over.
CREATIVE INITIATIVES
The festival unites various modern visual art volunteers that decorate the event, build fire sculptures, installations, and create our graphic elements.
ENVIRONMENT
We are the first festival in Lithuania to introduce a deposit system for festival cups and keep communicating our environmental-friendly ideas to the audience. Representatives of Telšiai and Ukmergė administration say that our festival is one of the cleanest mass-events in their districts.
THE AUDIENCE
KILKIM ŽAIBU is probably the only event in Lithuania with a 40-50% foreign audience. The festival is open to guests of all ages and social groups, offering a welcoming and comfortable space with both active or serene camping options. The event brings together an audience of 3,000-5,000 people every year. Most of them are curious explorers of niche cultures and artistic souls, whose expectations go far beyond the mass-consumption services. Doing our best to make KILKIM ŽAIBU as attractive and open to a wider audience as possible, we keep reminding that kids are always welcome, although the festival does not focus on family entertainment.
PLANS
We’ve got plans, ideas and enthusiasm for the future, hoping to raise the bar of the event higher and higher every year. We’re KILKIM ŽAIBU maniacs, looking forward the next event while the current one is still in action. And, of course, none of this could be possible without you. Our deepest THANK YOU all for believing and supporting us all these years. It's truly important! We raise our horns and wish more and more heavy music thunder for our meetings!