OFF Festival

OFF Festival is the alternative August weekend in Dolina Trzech Stawów, in Katowice. Artur Rojek directs it. In July 2014 he told Chloe Mayne, at NBHAP, that the cap was 15,000 people a day, because he cared about quality and not the number, and that there were four stages. The Songkick page for 7 to 9 August 2026 still prints 15,000. The valley is the green park inside the industrial basin of Silesia. Rojek compared it then to the Ruhr. The site, read on 28 September 2026, is still the Katowice one.

The OFF story page dates the first edition to 2006, in Mysłowice, Rojek's city. He builds it with his wife, Anka. The lineup names Lech Janerka, Maria Peszek, Lenny Valentino reunited for the occasion, and The White Birch. The same page says about ten thousand people came, and that they did not think about water, food, lodging, transport or toilets. The English Wikipedia puts about 11,000 people, 30 bands and three stages, from 18 to 20 August, in Słupna park. Ten thousand and eleven thousand stay together. In the 2014 interview Rojek says they started in Mysłowice nine years earlier. The festival page puts 2006. Both counts stay together. The fourth edition, in 2009, says goodbye to Mysłowice with The National and Spiritualized. Dziennik Zachodni tells the clash with mayor Grzegorz Osyra: of 300,000 zlotys planned, the council left none. Piotr Uszok, mayor of Katowice, takes the festival. Since 2010 it has been in Dolina Trzech Stawów. The history page and Marcin Bieniek both remember Wayne Coyne, of The Flaming Lips, inside an inflatable ball, crossing the crowd.

Bieniek publishes on 17 August 2026 the account of 7 to 9 August. Not a drop fell. The Drums fell off the bill shortly after the announcement. Wednesday, held in Sicily by a volcano, arrive and play on Sunday at 4 p.m. on the smaller stage, the Orlen Forest, instead of Saturday night on the main one. Bieniek does not see them. The notice before the weekend puts wristband exchange on Thursday the 6th, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 4 p.m. to midnight. The gate opens on the 7th at 5 p.m. and on the 8th and the 9th at 4 p.m. On Friday, on the main stage, The Flaming Lips. The notice said they would play Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots straight through. Bieniek names In the Morning of the Magicians, almost as on the record. From 2010 he remembers giant robots, confetti and the ball, and says the songs passed him by then. On the Trójka stage, Céline Dessberg adds the Mongolian yatga to a chamber folk. She repeats that the band had never played to a crowd like that. He leaves no title.

On Saturday, on the main stage, Arthur Verocai arrives in a wheelchair, at 81, and conducts the AUKSO orchestra, from Tychy, with two vocalists. He sings Caboclo himself, the track that opens the 1970s album. He points at his watch: the time is gone. On the Forest stage, Oklou works with smoke, lights and video recorded and projected in the moment. Bieniek gives no title. He had expected laptop tracks. He finds a staged show.

On Sunday, Johnny Marr comes onto the main stage as the sun goes down. By the second song, Generate! Generate!, he already has the crowd. The tremolo of How Soon Is Now? sounds, and at the close There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, sung with the audience. On the double-decker bus line, a plane from the nearby airport passes a few metres from the stage. On the Experimental stage, Getdown Services: Josh and Ben, from Minehead, take their shirts off. Almost all the music comes from a track. There is no title there either. On the Forest stage, Nu Genea starts a conga line in the crowd. No title. Sunny Day Real Estate close the festival, five musicians, amplifiers and Jeremy Enigk's voice, with a heavy dose of the album Diary. Bieniek does not break out songs. He says that, outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, the band had set foot in Europe only at Primavera Sound in Barcelona in 2010, with Nate Mendel, who is no longer there in Katowice. From that weekend he also writes three stumbles: Saam Sultan unable to follow the track, Natalie Bergman cutting her country set at 20 minutes, and a Romy set he ranks among the worst DJ sets he remembers.

The same text looks at the grounds. Three years earlier the Literary Café left and a jazz stage came in. The year before, the family area left. That weekend there was no campsite, no parking, and no sheet with the schedule. The published prices do not match. The English page of the site puts a three-day pass at 769 zlotys and another at 569, and one day at 399. The Dla Studenta notice puts 807.90 and 418.90, already with the operator's fee. The city of Katowice is listed as host. The main stage carries the name mBank and the forest stage the name Orlen. What stays walked is Caboclo on Saturday and There Is a Light That Never Goes Out on Sunday, in the same green valley.