Komēta is an annual open-air celebration of music and culture. In the words of the festival organizers: “With live music from various corners of the Earth, DJ sets, workshops, lectures and performances, Komēta is a unique and vibrant three-day event that embraces diversity and leaves long-term traces in its participants, by inviting and encouraging to practice the freedom to think, choose, connect, create and participate.”
This year's lineup includes a diverse panoply acts from the Baltic States, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Paraguay, India, Lebanon, among others, and the majority of the performances are dedicated to the so-called “world music”, a point of intersection between non–Western and Western sounds.
The musical program will be divided between three stages – “Higgs Boson”, “Pachamama Tribe” and “Signāls”.
“Higgs Boson” will bring together “classically-trained instrumentalists [and] musicians who have mastered the art of music through self-study”, while “Pachamama Tribe” will treat listeners to the “flourishing multicultural organic-electronic music scene”. In the meantime, “Signāls” will explore the varied forms of electronic music, taking a “dive into [its] darker facets”.
Along with the music, the festival will offer three solo performances, circus acts, workshops, lectures and discussions centered around the theme of “relationships” in the broadest sense of the word.
The long-term goal of the festival is to restore the Daugavgrīva fortress to its status as a cultural sanctuary, which would also inspire the interest and participation of locals.
Dāvis Kaņepe, one of the festival organizers, said in an interview with Latvian Radio on July 23 that the interest in the festival has grown throughout the years, which constitutes another crucial reason why the fortress ought to be reinvigorated.
“The Komēta Festival was born right when, you could say, the problems of the fortress were being defined. This is the fourth year, and a major turning point has been reached. The Privatization Agency is changing its status and so, according to law, it can now develop the area, because until now the fortress was “stuck in corridors of Law,” said Dāvis Kaņepe.
With regards to attendance, the head of “Bolderājas grupa” Sandra Jakušonoka remarked that the number of attendees on Saturdays and Sundays increases every year.
"If we had 300-400 attendees on Sunday in the first year, then last year the number had risen to 2000,” said Jakušonoka.
The program and tickets can be found on the festival website.
