Metronome festival to spotlight Czech and international artists in Prague
On Wednesday the sixth edition of the Metronome festival will kick off in Prague, ushering in four days of international musical programming and cultural events. I spoke with David Gaydečka, the founder of the festival, about the development of Metronome over the years, and the new elements being implemented this year.
“It’s been eight years since we started Metronome, the first edition was in 2016. The pandemic brought a two year pause, so this year is our sixth edition.
“We were improvising in between to survive, but I’m happy the festival is growing.
“It’s not easy to establish a festival in the centre of the city, there are a lot of things that need to be solved with city hall and other players involved.
“Some people think a festival should happen in the countryside, like many camping festivals.
“Metronome is a festival where people usually stay in hotels here in Prague, but I am quite sure that there is growing proof that this festival will help establish Prague as a brand and as a place where people should meet before summer really starts.”
When you were thinking of this festival before it started in 2016, what made you want to pick the centre of Prague as the location?
“Our agency and my colleagues really like to do site specific events.
“We already were doing the United Islands festival on the river in the centre of Prague for 12 or 13 years, so we are used to doing things that are not typical in stadiums or outside of the city.
“I think the city should not only be a place where you live, work, and eat, and then travel away from. It should be a place you enjoy.
“If you do festivals like Metronome in the centre, it gives the city a completely different vibe. We would like to change Prague to be more welcoming to inhabitants and visitors.
“We have a great venue too, the expo area [Výstaviště] sits in the middle of Royal Kings Garden, called Stromovka, and it was established in the 1200s by one of the kings.
“The expo area was built for a 100 year celebration that happened, and they built lots of indoor space on the edge of the park, so the area is one of the best for the festival.
“You have the outdoors in the park and an indoor area, and we feel that this place is the future for the festival.”
The festival has developed over the years beyond music. This year you will have live podcast recordings and you’re working with non-profits, so how do you think this makes Metronome unique?
“I think festivals are a combination of unique location, of programming – we have 80 concerts – and of the social community that you enjoy being a part of.
“That’s why we’re doing the Metronome fair, it’s based on lots of NGOs but also games.
“We have an escape game people will be able to play during the festival, it takes one hour to complete, and hopefully everyone escapes because we will need them to go home!
“We also have a little podcast festival, and one will be in English called Dope Yeah! It’s about music and it’s very new and not yet public. They will have their premier at our festival.
“A big topic for our festival and fair is braveness, we try to push people to be braver.
“Over these past years, there is so much fear being spread around, so we want to spread braveness against the fears.”
When it comes to putting your musical line up together, how do you create a balance between Czech and international talent?
“Our audience is international, we have lots of people from Prague and Czechia, but we also have expats as well. Around 20% of attendees are people travelling from abroad to come to the festival.
“We try to really mix the musical programming.
“It’s kind of complicated to choose the right Czech artists because some of them are really popular here in Czechia but might not be known outside.
“But there are lots of Czech artists who have big potential to travel abroad. We have Badfocus, Anna Vaverková, who lives in Berlin, Aiko, Pam Rabbit.
“There’s also Mydy, who have travelled already to the United States to play big festivals, so we try to seek those artists out and give more ambitions to the Czech scene to be more active outside of Czechia.
“I think that’s the future of the Czech scene, to expand and not just stay at home.”
Metronome Music & Arts Fair
Prague Exhibition Grounds
Stromovka 1058
Praha 7
21.6-24.6.23
