KALININGRAD, July 2. /TASS/. Organizers of Russia's rock festival Kubana said on Thursday they were planning to hold a seven-hour musical marathon in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad featuring seven famous bands from five countries.
"On August 9, an invisible festival called Anabuk will take place at the Yantarny Palace of Sports [in the Kaliningrad region]," the organizing committee’s press service told TASS, adding that the line-up would include Finnish rock band HIM, British band Enter Shikari, American hip hop group D12, Russian bands NAIV, Elysium and Animal Jazz alongside Belarusian rock band Trubetskoy.
After Russia’s biggest outdoor rock festival had been forced to leave its venue in Kaliningrad on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, Kubana’s organizing committee promised to arrange concerts featuring musicians who had been expected to come to the region.
Kubana was due to take place at a beach near Kaliningrad’s Yantarny village from August 6 to 9. But on June 17, local authorities cancelled the festival, explaining their decision by inability to ensure the safety of visiting crowds. The organizing committee said that many Russian regions and neighbouring countries expressed their readiness to host the event. After considering all options, organizers decided to relocate the festival to Latvia’s capital Riga.
On June 22, it was announced that the island Lucavsala, located in the heart of Riga, would host the event on August 6-9.
Since its inception in 2009, the festival has turned from local act into an international music event, attracting thousands of guests not only from Russia and former Soviet republics but also from all over Europe.
Kubana is the first Russian member of the European Festival Association YOUROPE, twice nominated for the European Festival Awards and made it to the top 10 European festivals.
This year’s announced line-up features more than ten bands and singers from Great Britain, Greece, Israel, Iceland, Spain, the United States, France and Sweden, including well-known headliners like Panic! At the Disco, Hollywood Undead, HIM, D12 and Infected Mushroom, as well as Russian top artists.