ESNS Exchange – For More Performances at European Festivals

Initiative Musik is the official German representative of ESNS Exchange (formerly ETEP), with the goal of supporting musicians and festivals in internationalising their activities. This EU programme provides fresh perspectives for all musician performing at the Eurosonic in Groningen, Netherlands.

The Eurosonic showcase festival is one of the annual industry meetings for the international music scene. At the beginning of the year, selected bands get the unique opportunity to perform for an international specialist audience and win them over with their talent. Concerts arranged through Eurosonic are supported by the EU programme ESNS Exchange, creating strong incentives for booking European newcomer acts for participating festivals. More than 4,000 performances by 1,400 European artists have been arranged since 2003.

Artists from Germany at Eurosonic

The following is a partial lists of artists from Germany that have benefited from ESNS Exchange at previous editions of Eurosonic:

• Milky Chance, a band from Kassel (eight performances at European festivals, 2013
• Alice Merton, a pop artist from Berlin (six performances, 2017)
• Meute, a techno marching band from Hamburg (five performances, 2017)
• Gato Preto, an Afrofunk duo from Düsseldorf (four performances, 2018)

Organised by the Noorderslag Foundation and BUMA Cultuur, a total of 128 European festivals take part in this programme in order to discover new artists for their line-ups. This includes 21 festivals from Germany as of 2019.

Initiative Musik’s participation in ESNS Exchange is funded from the budget of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM).

Find out more about artist applications, participating festivals, exporting offices and results on the ESNS Exchange website.