UKA - Norway's largest cultural festival

Norway has plenty of festivals. Most of them take place during summer, most of them last for about a week, and most of them also have volunteers. There are several just here in Trondheim. However, there is one that surpasses all others in terms of width, length, visitors and enthusiasm. UKA is Norway’s largest cultural festival, giving you 25 days of concerts, theatre, musical, seminars and much more. That’s why UKA is best described as the dream of living the student life forever.

It all started with the stage show ”Baccarat” in 1917. The goal of the production was to keep Samfundet (the students’ cultural house in Trondheim) economically independent. It succeeded. UKA has been held semi-annually ever since, except for during WWII. UKA’s history is strongly connected to Samfundet, and the two have developed parallel to each other. Both rely on the other’s existence, and UKA turns Samfundet upside down in October every other year.

Giving back has always been one of the focus areas, and UKA has previously cooperated with the TV-campaign Care and arranged a climate conference, among other things. But while the sense of tradition always is strong, the festival also has the ability to renew itself. UKA earned the Ut Award (a prize elected by the newspaper Adresseavisen’s readers) for “Cultural achievement of the decade” in Central Norway in 2010.

From 1917 to the present day, the festival has developed from one single stage production to a cultural festival, featuring artists such as Muse, Franz Ferdinand, a-ha, The Prodigy and Jay-Z. However, the stage show is still the heart of UKA.

It may seem hard to believe, but Norway’s largest cultural festival is run entirely by volunteers, from top to bottom. Trondheim’s tradition for volunteer work is well known, and a trademark for UKA. In 2009, 1400 volunteers made sure everything ran smoothly. 6500 spectators jumped up and down in Death Valley, 90 000 litres of beer were sold during the festival, activities spanning from juggling courses to crime night to wrestling were held in Death Valley and Samfundet, and commercial partners contributed with events like “UKA robot challenge”, where the contesters competed in building and programming Lego robots.

From October 6 through 30, 2011, UKA will be held for the 46th time. Do you want to join?