Riga’s experimental music festival Skaņu Mežs 2026 will take place on October 9–10 at Hanzas Perons (16A Hanzas Street), featuring such acts as Smerz, Krallice, aya, KMRU, Cities Aviv and many others. It has been hailed by several media outlets as the premier experimental music event in the Baltic states. Two-day tickets can be purchased here; their price is 60 EUR. “Duo tickets” are also available for 50 + 50 EUR. Single day tickets cost 40 EUR. Set times have now also been announced and can be found below.
About the festival
The Wire Magazine, previously having hailed Skaņu Mežs as the biggest avant-garde music festival in the Baltic states, focused the review of its 2025 edition on its informed and open-minded audience: “There is nothing this audience can’t handle,” wrote Daniel Spicer.
Last December, British radio station BBC Radio 3 aired a two-hour show, devoted to the festival.
Music journalist Tom Service said: “Skaņu Mežs casts its net as generously as possible over the vast and thrilling terrains of new musicmaking.”
Meanwhile, Daryl Worthington of The Quietus described the festival as “a weekend of stunning performances”, “a space of radical sound and vision”, and “a world of deviant and defiant art”. In a later publication this year, The Quietus also described Skaņu Mežs as “the most internationally recognised platform for experimental music in Latvia”.
About the program
The main programme of Skaņu mežs consists of 16 concerts, spanning genres from free improvisation to post-club music.
During the festival, installations by Erik Alalooga and Augustė Vickunaitė will also be on display in the foyer of Hanzas Perons. Between the concerts, performances will be presented by the collective ModularTribe.riga.
And starting from 8 October, lectures and masterclasses by the festival’s guest artists will be available to attend free of charge at various educational institutions – a detailed program of these activities can be found on the festival website.
Set times
October 9
19:00 — Augustė Vickunaitė
19:45 — KMRU
20:35 — Michael Foster & Chris Corsano & Leila Bordreuil
21:25 — Sophia Djebel Rose
22:15 — aya
23:15 — Krallice
00:15 — SOFI
01:00 — Ship Sket
October 10
19:00 — Agita Reķe
19:45 — Oren Ambarchi & Daniel O’Sullivan play Charlemagne Palestine
20:40 — Rob Brown, John Edwards & Klaus Kugel
21:35 — Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals
22:30 — Gudrun Gut
23:30 — Smerz
00:25 — Cities Aviv
01:20 — m.a.t.a.d.a.t.a.
The festival is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, Goethe-Institut Riga, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, BALTA and Valmiermuižas Alus.
Skaņu Mežs is part of the sound art project tekhnē, supported by the European Union and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. The festival is also part of the NERDS network, co-funded by the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture.
Media partners include The Quietus, TVNET, Satori.lv, Radio NABA, Arterritory, magazine “Mūzikas Saule”, and la.lv.
More detailed info can be found on www.skanumezs.lv
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