About Up To Date Festival

Up To Date Festival takes place in Bialystok, in the very heart of north-eastern Poland.

Each year, for over a decade, UTDF has been visited by thousands of participants, and the festival events have taken place in such diverse spaces as the City Stadium’s car parks, Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Hall, and Branicki Palace.

The mission of Up To Date Festival is to present various genres of electronic music, starting with ambitious rap, through techno and electro, to ambient and modern classical.

Most of the festival’s activities revolve around three stages: Pozdro Techno, Centralny Salon Ambientu, Beats. and Czwarta Scena Czwórki. Each of them is backed by our own ideas and philosophy, which can be read not only in the characteristic stage design or space arrangement, but above all, in the very selection of artists performing on them.

Each year, we work carefully to serve our guests contemporary music of the highest quality – unafraid to cross boundaries, adventurous in its means of expression and exploratory in a unique, non-obvious way. We favour the new, the unknown or the as yet unrecognised, the fresh and the modern. At the same time, we take care of the names of legendary performers from all over the world, showing the connections prevailing in contemporary music and modern culture. Eclectic electronica, original hip-hop, ambient and contemporary classical music, combined with different, sometimes very distant from each other creative activities, aim to create an artistic space, bravely resisting the sea of triviality and cheapness that floods us from everywhere.

The festival is created by local activists – deadly determined, painstakingly attentive to detail, yet distanced from the surrounding reality. With vigour, humour, but also the right amount of seriousness and respect, we devote ourselves to the passion of creating a unique event in Poland. From year to year, we put enormous effort into creating a friendly atmosphere for contemplating contemporary art.

However, Up To Date Festival is not only about music – it is a platform bravely combining various fields of creative activity. This is why the UTDF is so distinctive. On the one hand, its face is the sound, on the other the stage design, but also original on- and off-line communication, which has become a true hallmark of the festival. UTDF is also about social actions, such as Send a Postcard to Grandma, 50+ or Ambient Alley, as well as the UTDF De Luxe collection of unique, crazy clothes. All this creates a unique space for exchange – of thoughts, visions and values.

The Up To Date Festival is a sincere initiative of dedicated people supported by a loyal festival audience, the Bialystok City Hall, the Podlasie Marshal’s Office, as well as our Partners.