Festivals & events

If you happen to be in Helsinki Saturday and Sunday 26-27th of May 2012 you are very very lucky! During that weekend you don’t need to think about what to do in Helsinki since the World Village Festival (Maailma Kylässä Festivaali 2012) takes place in the very heart of Helsinki city center.

The World Village Festival takes place in a large area from the Railway Square all the way to Kaisaniemi Park and in the evenings some clubs are covered with tents and stages – full of free festival events!

Great bands and well known artists from different areas of performing arts – from all over the world come together!

This festival has been held in Helsinki since from 1995 and the main organiser of World Village Festival is the Service Centre for Development Cooperation – KEPA. It is the umbrella organisation for nearly 300 development organisations or other NGOs working on issues concerning development and globalisation. KEPA itself is a politically and ideologically non-aligned organisation.

There are so many great artist performing at this festival – but our family will definitely go to see Jukka Poika & Sound Explosion Band since they are THE name and pioneer of Finnish reggae. In order to choose what you want to see at the festival - please have a look at the extensive festival program here. You may also get familar with the sterling stars and their music via World Village Festival Spotify list.

Hope to see you there!

Every city has a starting point. When you come to Helsinki and you want to follow the steps of history – then this spot is a perfect place to start to explore Helsinki.

Take your Helsinki city guide with you or just get our Helsinki city guide application on your phone. Go to Old student house have and a cup of coffee or beer. The café-Bar itself is modest, but you go there because of the history and the location – it is in the middle of everything and it´s never too crowded in this place.

I bet you did not know that The Student Union of the University of Helsinki was founded in 1868. It currently has 32,000 members and is one of the world’s richest student organizations, with assets of several hundred million euros. And the Union owns several (half of the city we say) remarkable buildings in the city.

Old student house is one of the buildings and it inside they have modest Cafe Bar called Vanhan Kuppila, but since it is a festive house they also held several events, concerts, clubs, seasonal markets and many more.

They have sunday fleamarkets until 1st of April from 09:00 to 15:00 and the Café is open as well!

Helsinki Photography Biennial 2012 is held March 2nd – April 30th 2012.

This year the theme of HPB12 is urbanity and the city. The biennial will explore the city and the urban way of life by the means of photography and through alternating and even mutually challenging approaches and assertions. For this reason this is very dear subject for me.

I have not visited this biennial yet, but I will be during the next week. I wanted to write this spot for you that you might have time to visit before it closes.

Some of the exhibitions that are part of the biennial will be open longer than April 30th but also some of them will close earlier.

The main stage of this biennial is the Helsinki City Museum in the Hakasalmi Villa (picture above) and in the Sederholm House. I especially also love the history of the Hakasalmi Villa.

In addition to the main exhibitions, HPB12 also expands in a series of events into the museums, galleries and other venues as well as public spaces in the Helsinki metropolitan area.

So once again many reasons to visit this event spot – which is actually held every second year. It’s free entry to Hakasalmi Villa and Sederholm house.

You might already know – or then maybe not – that Helsinki is the Word Design Capital 2012!

What would better time time to visit Helsinki than during this year of design!

The hole Helsinki city and the cities near are filled with extensive program of various events, exhibitions and different kind of projects and programs happening all around the city and all the time. Of course architecture, different kind of design workshops and food culture will play a large role during this year as well. Not to mention the different kind of products related to this year and Helsinki that you can buy as a souvenir.

The WDC Helsinki 2012 year started this new years eve with an extensive light and video show at Senate Square: see video.

Please visit the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012 website to look more detailed program as well map of the events and happenings.