- "Helsinki comes alive in the summertime," as one bartender told me at the beginning of VISIO's first year in the Finnish capital. It's the kind of Stockholm syndrome you get with places that suffer bad winters—people hide for six months, then come out and play like none of it ever happened. It feels especially true for Helsinki, where the winters are long and frigid and the summer days last for 20 hours or longer. But that sense of new life also comes from a surge of youthful, cultural energy in Helsinki, which is home to all kinds of new festivals, art events and other gatherings every year.
VISIO is one of the latest additions to this scene. Drawing from the city's intimate but potent underground scene, its focus is more concentrated on house and techno than Flow Festival, which takes over an abandoned power plant in Helsinki with a Melt!-like spread of alt-pop stars and DJs. VISIO also has a smaller crowd (capped at 4000).
Taking place at Teurastamo, an abbatoir-turned-arts-complex, at first VISIO felt like a miniature Sónar By Day. There was a big main stage and plenty of nooks and crannies to explore, plus a host of food options and small bars. Art, from paintings to installations, was littered throughout the site, offering something to look at even while you were on the dance floor. When it came to music, VISIO managed to fit four stages into a remarkably small area. To their credit there was virtually no sound bleed between stages, a feat of clever planning and smart sound setup that made the space feel much bigger than it was.
The outdoor main stage played host to live acts like Todd Terje & The Olsens, Max Graef Band and Harvey Sutherland, with another outdoor area hosted by local station Bassoradio that faced a patio bar. The big-name DJ oriented VISIO stage was put in a dark room on the side of the venue, with the smaller (and even darker) Technostudio hidden through a doorway behind it. Each stage had its own identity, but the smaller ones stood out: the Technostudio was always packed and sweaty, while the Bassoradio stage had a fun, backyard BBQ feel as people danced with pints (and actual BBQ).
Those two stages were also home to the festival's major musical highlights. Hunee played a typically diverse set that stretched from Italo to techno at the Bassoradio stage, while Joey Anderson captivated with a set that push-and-pulled perfectly between the trippy and the uplifting, matching the sudden bursts of rain and breaks of sunshine that marked VISIO's second day. The Technostudio, meanwhile, boasted an intense live set from Shifted, while Borrowed Identity played the hardest house he had in his bag.
The main stage had solid, feel-good bookings but failed to captivate crowds (outside of Todd Terje), while the VISIO Stage had the biggest names of the whole festival, including Levon Vincent, Boddika, Detroit Swindle and Fred P. But the VISIO Stage also had a head-scratchingly hard time keeping anyone in the room. Maybe it was down to being a dark room while it was sunny outside—it didn't get dark out until around midnight—but it was still surprising to see DJs like Vincent and Fred P unable to command a small room, or even hold its attention for more than a few tracks.
VISIO is a new festival in a city with a very small electronic music scene. And without the crossover appeal of something like Flow, it's an uphill battle, at least in Helsinki. But what VISIO lacked in pure numbers it made up for in excitement—an enthusiastic crowd of locals made even the small Bassoradio stage feel like a wild party—but there still weren't enough people to fill up four stages of music. VISIO could have had half the bookings and still been a good festival. It was admirably ambitious for a first attempt (though the complete lack of women on the bill was a sore oversight), and there was no time over the first two days where I couldn't find something I enjoyed.
Fittingly for such a close-knit electronic music scene, the most exuberance was reserved for the Finnish artists. I saw previously unknown-to-me producers like Pekko and Hannu Ikola play blistering live sets—the latter's rush of vintage drum machine sounds and hectic synths was a particular standout. But my absolute favourite was Deep Space Helsinki, who closed out the Technostudio on Friday night with a three-and-a-half-hour set that struck a powerful chord between spacey and functional, to a full and excited room.
When Deep Space Helsinki were playing, packed inside a small dark space that could have been some nightclub's side room, it was easy to forget that we were at a festival with an all-star lineup. And in a city with only a couple of key nightclubs, maybe that's why that moment felt so great—there was a sense of appreciation from everyone in the room to have a space to celebrate homegrown talent. There might not have been thousands of people thronging to VISIO, but there were enough to make it a promising prospect in a burgeoning scene in one of Europe's most underrated cities.
Photo credit: Andrew Taylor