KrakowInformer.com

Shanties Festival

Although the sea is five hundred kilometers away, and even in a thousand years the global warming won't bring its shores to Krakow, the city is prepared for an onslaught of sea dogs. In fact, it suffers one every February since 1981 during the Shanties festival.

The International Sea Songs Festival “Shanties” started off as a local event, taking place some 27 years ago in a basement of a community center in Krakow. Surprisingly it caught on, and started becoming bigger and bigger. The breakthrough for the Shanties Festival was certainly the 1987 edition, when first musicians from abroad participated in the festival. From then on it has become Poland's biggest – and one of Europe's most important – sea songs festivals.

The events of the Shanties festival are organized in two venues, the Rotunda Community Center on Oleandry Street and the Stary Port Tavern (not a pub!) near the Planty.

Each year about 40 bands and musicians participate in the 6 main concerts of the four day festival. The concerts are attended by more than ten thousand people, which makes the Shanties Festival one of the biggest events in Krakow in February.

It has become somewhat of a tradition that during the Shanties Festival, the most popular sea hits are born – and so are the young shanty bands. Among those discovered during the Shanties Festival are popular Polish groups such as Cztery Refy, Ryczące Dwudziestki, Mechanicy Shanty or Zejman i Garkumpel.

Apart from all the singing and playing (and, obviously, heavy drinking for those interested), the Shanties Festival consists of meetings with sailors (sea dogs, if you will), photo exhibitions and movie screenings. An important part of the Shanties Festival is also the annual Trade Fair for Sailing “Krakżagiel”, enabling to buy and sell sea equipment and other objects.

The 2009 edition of the Shanties Festival will take place between February 19^th and 22^nd, and will be entitled “Nights on the Ocean”.