Our Mission

Our association aims to offer people creative, alternative, and sustainable ways of living through cultural events. We strive to create a platform where different groups—such as associations, artists, and the public—can connect and build stronger relationships within Luxembourg and the surrounding regions. To achieve these goals, we organize various events like concerts, art exhibitions, workshops, and discussions.

Accessibility & inclusivity

We are committed to making our events inclusive and accessible to everyone, promoting a society that values diversity and tolerance. We strongly condemn all forms of racism, sexism, ableism (discrimination based on ability), ageism (discrimination based on age), classism (discrimination based on social class), homophobia, and transphobia.

Kolla Festival: Storytime!

In the polished landscape of Luxembourg’s cultural scene in 2013, something was missing. Events were awash with single-use plastics, excess was celebrated rather than questioned, and sustainability was barely a whisper in the background. The cultural landscape needed guardians – not just of art and music, but of a different vision for how we might gather, celebrate, and connect.

More than a festival

Kolla was born from a recognition that festivals could do more than entertain – they could transform. In a world rushing toward disposable consumption, a small group envisioned a different path. “Kolla,” derived from “collaborative consumption,” wasn’t just a name but a manifesto: a declaration that we could share more and waste less while celebrating creativity.

Our crew carried second-hand furniture, rescued materials destined for landfills, and dreams of a festival where environmental consciousness danced alongside artistic expression. This wasn’t just about recycling – it was about reimagining what a music festival could be.

Hippietralala

The first steps were uncertain. Many saw only “a bunch of lazy student-hippies that just wanted to party” rather than cultural actors. Financing an event and planning for its future while being determined to remain affordable, paying artists fairly and sourcing local, sustainable products was and still is a challenge

Every nail hammered into reclaimed wood, every donated item transformed into stage decoration, every conversation with skeptical officials was a step across the threshold into unknown territory. Could a festival truly embody its values of sustainability while remaining financially viable? Could a volunteer team create something professional enough to be taken seriously?

Growing slowly, but steadily

The path wasn’t easy. Year after year, Kolla faced the seemingly impossible task of creating a semi-professional festival with volunteer power, building magical spaces from discarded materials, and balancing ecological principles with financial realities. Gradually, allies emerged – local producers who shared our vision, artists who found a home for expression that didn’t fit elsewhere, and a growing community that returned year after year, finding in Kolla something authentic that couldn’t be manufactured.

Our greatest strength became our identity as a platform for the alternative, the underground, the creative souls that didn’t fit neatly into Luxembourg’s more polished cultural boxes. Young musicians who first took the stage at Kolla went on to become professional bands. Artists found freedom to test boundaries. A family formed – bound not by convention but by shared values and the joy of creation.

“never don’t give up!”

Then came the darkness. The pandemic swept across the world, and Kolla faced its greatest challenge. Events canceled just weeks before opening. Three years of silence. Funds dwindled to almost nothing. Finding venues became nearly impossible. The idea of a 3 days open air festival didn’t seem to fit into most venue’s concept anymore. As team members moved deeper into their professional lives, time – that most precious resource – became scarcer than ever.

The festival stood at the edge of extinction. Had the journey ended? Was Kolla’s vision of a different kind of celebration possible under those circumstances?

Kollatronica

But the seed planted in 2013 had grown roots too deep to be easily uprooted. The Kolla spirit found new expression in Kollatronica – a micro-festival carrying the essence of “grand Kolla” in a more compact form. The transformation wasn’t a retreat but an evolution, a phoenix rising with renewed purpose.

In 2023, Kolla returned to its full form in Mersch, proving that even after years of dormancy, its unique spirit could bloom again. And in 2024, Kollatronica found a home at Bâtiment 4 in Esch, where new connections formed and the community expanded in unexpected directions.

Kolla is back!

Today, Kolla stands as more than just a festival. It has become a platform where creativity that “falls out of the box” finds a home – where art and music that might be considered too raw, too unconventional, or too challenging for mainstream venues can breathe and flourish.

In a cultural landscape that often sanitizes creativity and pre-digests it for public consumption, Kolla offers something different: a space where people can be their craziest selves, where ideas don’t need to fit into predefined boxes, where sustainability isn’t just a branding exercise but a lived practice.

The elixir Kolla brings back to Luxembourg isn’t just entertainment but possibility – the proof that gatherings can nurture both artistic expression and environmental consciousness, that community can form around shared values rather than commercial transactions, that there is space for the authentic and the handmade in our increasingly packaged world.

The journey continues. Each year brings new challenges, new allies, new inspirations. But the spirit of Kolla remains: a collaborative adventure in reimagining what our cultural spaces can be when we dare to step outside convention and create something truly our own.

2025 marks a new beginning: new priorities, a revised concept and … a new venue!