Open’er Festival 2026, Four Days of Musical Bliss

There’s a certain electricity that only appears once a year on the edge of the Baltic. Gdynia Kosakowo Airport stops being an airstrip and turns into a temporary city of noise, movement, exhaustion and revelation. Open’er Festival 2026 is shaping up as one of those editions that doesn’t just entertain, it asserts itself.

This is a lineup built on contrast and conviction.

On the Orange Main Stage, the scale is immediate. Calvin Harris brings mass euphoria, huge beats designed to move tens of thousands in the same direction at once. Love it or fight it, the release is unavoidable. Then there’s Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, a band that turns concerts into shared rituals. Expect intensity, vulnerability, moments of stillness followed by absolute emotional collapse. Few acts command a crowd like this.

The Cure arriving in Gdynia isn’t about legacy tourism. Their songs still bruise, still comfort, still feel necessary. Alongside them, Halsey and Reneé Rapp represent a different kind of honesty, pop that doesn’t flinch, pop that wears its scars in public.

The Tent Stage remains the soul of the festival. David Byrne, restless and generous, continues to turn music into a conversation about connection and community. Matt Berninger brings songs that feel lived in, heavy with late night reflection. IDLES will do what they do best, tear the room apart, then stitch it back together through volume, sweat and solidarity.

Elsewhere, Open’er shows its taste for the uncomfortable and the uncompromising. Ethel Cain drags slow burning narratives into the open air, full of faith, fear and damaged beauty. PinkPantheress distils emotion into short, sharp hits that linger longer than they should. JADE, Audrey Nuna and Addison Rae bring modern pop in its many shapes, confident, confrontational, unashamed of scale or visibility.

The Alter Stage is where sound stops behaving. Anna Von Hausswolff will bend the air itself, her performances closer to spiritual experiences than concerts. The Afghan Whigs remind everyone how grit and soul collide when done right. Horsegiirl and UUK push electronic music into strange territory, where identity is fluid and the dancefloor becomes theatre.

And then there are the moments that will define individual nights. Kneecap weaponising language and rhythm. Sofi Tukker unleashing pure, physical joy. Teddy Swims silencing crowds with nothing but a voice. Tomora grounding the festival in Poland’s own electronic underground.

Open’er has always worked best when it trusts contradiction. Heavy next to light. Anger next to intimacy. Pop next to noise.