Essay

What Music Festivals Look Like During Wartime 🇺🇦

Music, Sirens, Resistance, and Compassion at Kyiv's Vegan Weekend.

Ambient artist Emil Asadow from Odesa

Yes, festivals are still happening in Ukraine. And not only happening — they’re evolving, expanding, and responding to the war with creativity and urgency.

The war in Ukraine is now in its third year, and no public event takes place under "normal" conditions. Air raid sirens, the threat of missile or drone strikes — these are daily realities for everyone in the country, and festivals are no exception.

Sirens, Bunkers and An Early Finish

In Kyiv, cultural events usually end by 10:30 PM to allow visitors to get home before the midnight curfew. Most events take place during the day. At each venue, organizers indicate the nearest shelter — in Kyiv, this is typically a metro station.

But reality is more complex. Sirens can go off multiple times a day, and many clubs or venues lack designated shelters. People have learned to assess the level of threat themselves, using monitoring channels and apps to determine whether an alert is preventive (for example, due to a MiG jet taking off) or an actual attack involving drones or ballistic missiles. Based on this, each individual decides whether to stay or head to a shelter.

Organizers act responsibly. In cases of real danger, events can be paused, and attendees asked to leave the venue. Over more than two years, this has happened only once at an event I'm one of the music curators for called Vegan Weekend — music was paused and the festival halted during an air raid alert, resuming only after it was cleared. This, however, remains an exception — and reflects the broader experience of Ukrainians learning to protect both life and culture amid war.

Vegan Weekend is a two-day Kyiv-based music and cultural festival organized by the NGO Every Animal, which brings together experimental sound, visual art, ethical conversations, and activism. Since launching in 2022, it has grown into a platform for artists, thinkers, and communities to connect through a shared ethos: compassion for animals, solidarity with Ukraine’s defenders, and commitment to cultural resistance.

Now preparing for its tenth edition, Vegan Weekend will take place on June 7–8th at ∄, one of Kyiv’s biggest cultural institutions. The festival features two music stages — from ambient to breakcore, from noise and glitch to guitar-driven indie — alongside art installations, lectures, a photo exhibition, ethical market, and all-vegan food court.

It’s loud, complex, deeply intentional and fully non-profit: 100% of the funds raised go to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including MRE (meals-ready-to-eat) ration packs for soldiers who follow a vegan diet.

This year, the festival introduces its first-ever general partner, Eat Me At, a Kyiv-based producer of plant-based meat alternatives. Their presence underscores one of the key messages of the event: veganism isn’t niche or exclusive — it’s for everyone.

The ability to hold festivals like Vegan Weekend is only possible thanks to the Ukrainian Defense Forces, who keep the capital relatively safe by holding back enemy advances. Kyiv is far from the front lines, and this context cannot be directly compared to the realities of frontline cities like Kharkiv or Zaporizhzhia, where the threat level is significantly higher and such cultural events in a similar format remain impossible.

How It All Began: The Story of Vegan Weekend

The first Vegan Weekend took place in the fall of 2022 — after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine — as a response to the challenges of wartime. Its mission remains unchanged: to promote veganism, support Ukraine’s Defense Forces, and foster an ethical culture in which animals are not seen as food, clothing, or commodities.

What started as a small one-day gathering has since grown into a full-scale two-day event that brings together music, media art, educational talks, and civic engagement. Over the course of two and a half years, nine Vegan Weekends have raised more than $80,000 to support Ukraine’s defenders — from vegan field rations to FPV drones, gear, and aid for specific military brigades.

The festival took place even during widespread blackouts, and one edition in 2024 broke records by collecting over $20,000 in donations.

But Vegan Weekend is about more than just programming or fundraising. It’s a festival open to everyone — created by vegans and non-vegans alike, by musicians, activists, artists, and attendees with different perspectives and life experiences. What unites them is empathy, openness to change, and a willingness to act.

For two days, Vegan Weekend becomes a demo version of a vegan-world without violence or exploitation. It proves that a festival grounded in vegan values can be contemporary, large-scale, musical, and artistic — not a food fair, but a cultural phenomenon.

Vegan Weekend X: Culture, Empathy, and Resistance in Wartime Kyiv

“The theme of this year’s festival is ‘the illusion of safety’,” the organizers explain.“Sometimes we believe that by looking away or avoiding difficult truths, we can protect ourselves from pain. But reality doesn’t disappear just because we choose to ignore it.

Animals live in this overlooked space — their suffering and deaths often remain unseen, even as they are direct victims of human actions. With Vegan Weekend X, we invite visitors to reflect on this illusion and to reconsider our collective relationship with animals.”

The festival features two stages — Concert Hall Stage and Community Garden Stage — hosting over 20 live performances and DJ sets.

This year's lineup includes:

Oleksii Podat, working in the genre of "melodic noise", blending academic structures, pop tropes, and radical sound design.

YUVí, a Kyiv-based producer combining bass-driven electronics, sensual pop, and feminist expressiveness.

Emil Asadow, whose eco-black-ambient compositions explore national identity, ancestral memory, and personal heritage.

Maryana Klochko, creating an intimate blend of ambient, folk, and experimental pop.

Molodyk, a noise-industrial project by a co-founder of the "Noise Every Wednesday" series, which regularly donates to vegan MRE's for Ukrainian soldiers.

These examples reflect not only the genre diversity, but the depth of themes shaping the festival.

Beyond the Music: Reflection, Ethics, and Everyday Activism

The program also includes a photography exhibition by Jo-Anne McArthur, founder of WeAnimals; a panel discussion on the ethics of using animal-derived materials in art; a mindfulness zone; tattoo zone; a vegan charity market and food court and other activities.

Vegan Weekend is designed as a temporary demo-version of a vegan world — a space open to all, regardless of lifestyle or diet. It brings together people who share or are curious about values of empathy, justice, and nonviolence. Here, visitors can experience community, rethink the world around them, and expand their cultural horizons.

Charity at Its Core

Alongside its cultural mission, Vegan Weekend X remains fully charitable. All proceeds from ticket sales, donations, food, market stands, and auctions will support Ukraine's Defense Forces.

This year’s funds will benefit the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, the National Guard brigade "Khartiia", and the production and delivery of vegan field rations for service members.

The idea of vegan rations was born in the early days of the full-scale invasion, when activists realised many vegan soldiers were forced to adapt to standard military meals. With no official support for plant-based diets, the NGO Every Animal launched the Vegan Kitchen of Ukraine — initially to provide hot vegan meals for displaced people, later developing full field-ready vegan rations for frontline troops.

Culture and Compassion Under Fire

Vegan Weekend X is a living example of how culture, ethics, and mutual aid can coexist — even in wartime. It creates a space where veganism is not a limitation but a model of an open, compassionate society, where art lives alongside activism, and music meets mutual support.

This is more than a local success — it's a message to the world: even under fire, Ukrainians continue to build new formats that champion ethical values, support their defenders, and unite thousands around shared hope.

Kseniia Yanus is a journalist at Neformat.com.ua. She is a member of the bands Bez Gruntu and YouzMuzak. Yanus is also a co-founder of the event series “Noise Every Wednesday”. Follow Kseniia on Instagram.