Features
The Haunted Youth Lead 2023 ESNS Exchange Bookings
An initiative of ESNS, ESNS Exchange facilitates the bookings of European acts on festivals outside their home countries and generates extensive media exposure for these artists in cooperation with Euroradio, export offices and local media.
The way it does that is by inviting hundreds of festival bookers to ESNS each year, who check out the hottest acts on the lineup and book them on the spot.
ESNS Exchange has kickstarted the careers of several artists, who are now successfully touring Europe and the world, including Hozier, Birth Of Joy, Milky Chance, Jungle, Seinabo Sey, Aurora, and Years & Years.
353 Shows For 148 Acts: ESNS Exchange Back In Full Swing
It is therefore always worth watching the most-booked acts after each ESNS edition. This year, 244 shows by 116 acts at 73 festivals in 26 different countries are already in the books.
Leading the list for most festival bookings in 2023 are Belgian psych-pop formation The Haunted Youth with 11 shows at ESNS Exchange festivals. Swedish Hip Hop duo Deki Alem follow closely behind with nine bookings, and Sprints from Ireland take the third position with 7 bookings behind their name. Rounding out the top 5 are Skaar from Norway (6 bookings), and Baby Volcano from Switzerland (5 bookings).
More than 100 festivals take part in the ESNS Exchange program. The partner festival with the most ESNS Exchange bookings took place earlier this month. Brighton’s The Great Escape, which booked 31 acts performing at ESNS this year and participating in ESNS Exchange.
Iceland Airwaves booked the second-most artists, ten in total, followed by Festival Europavox Clermont-Ferrand in France (9 bookings), c/o pop Festival Germany (9 bookings), and Ment Ljubljana in Slovenia (8 bookings).