UKA: Norway`s largest cultural festival

Settled in Trondheim and arranged every other year, UKA is the largest cultural festival in Norway. UKA is mainly a music festival, attracting a huge number of visitors over the three weeks it is held. Besides the music, the festival also offers a broad range of cultural events, e.g theatre, art and stage shows. UKA-07 was a big success, with nearly 300 events and over 80 000 tickets sold, which gave a total turnover of almost €5 million.

UKA was established as a small event in 1917 and has since then been arranged every second year. Growing rapidly over the decades, UKA can now look back at a variety of presented acts, like Muse, Pussycat Dolls, 50 Cent, Wyclef Jean, Travis, The Dandy Warhols, The Prodigy, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, The Cardigans, Turbonegro, Garbage, Faithless, Asian Dub Foundation, The Roots, Apocalyptica, Grant Lee Buffalo, Motörhead, Cypress Hill and Chippendales. Several bands have been reunited to perform at UKA - resulting in comebacks - including Seigmen and a-Ha. Tom McRae, among other artists, returned to play again because of the unique atmosphere in the festival town of Trondheim.

The festival is held at Samfundet, the very hub of musical entertainment in Trondheim, with 3 stages, 3 nightclubs and 2 pubs. Since 1991, concerts have also been held in a pavilion in "The Valley of Death" near Samfundet, and is the largest stage. Our second largest stage is "The Grand Hall" at Samfundet, with a capacity of 1000 spectators. It is ranked as the second largest club scene in Norway, and bands like Phoenix, Coolio, Lambchop, Kent, Röyksopp, The Soundtrack of our Lives, Mew and The Hives have done their performances here. The great variety of stages, spanning from the pavilion to the different sized scenes at Samfundet, gives the festival a unique combination of arena concerts as well as more intimate settings. A wide range of Norwegian bands have played at Samfundet during previous UKA festivals. Some have started their career at Samfundet and some even had their commercial breakthrough here.

UKA-09 will span from the 1st to the 25th of October. Our ambition for UKA-09 is to reach a broader audience, present larger concerts, create a wider variety of events; altogether to make a greater UKA than ever before.

(Photo: Fotogjengen ved Studentersamfundet i Trondhjem)