Winners of the 2025 European Festival Awards

15 January 2026 - Press release

Congratulations to all the winners of the 2025 European Festival Awards. For this year, festivals from over 30 countries participated and 300,000 single votes have been cast by the public. This resulted in 104 shortlisted nominees in 13 distinct categories, not counting the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Here are all winners of the European Festival Awards 2025.

The Take a Stand Award

Presented by: Take A Stand

Sziget Festival (Hungary)

Line-Up of the Year

Presented by: IQ Magazine

Lowlands (The Netherlands)

The Event Safety Award

Presented by: Citymesh & YES Group

Rock for People (Czech Republic)

Agent of the Year

Steve Zapp (ITB)

Best Small Festival

Dynamo Metalfest (The Netherlands)

Newcomer of the Year

Presented by: ESNS

Addison Rae (USA)

The Brand Activation Award

Pinkpop with Libresse (The Netherlands)

Best Medium-Sized Festival

Presented by: Access All Areas

Pohoda Festival (Slovakia)

The Green Operations Award

Presented by: GO Group

Štěrkovna Open Music (Czech Republic)

Best Major Festival

Presented by: Eventim

Paléo Festival Nyon (Switzerland)

The Award for Excellence & Passion

Stephan Thanscheidt, FKP Scorpio (Germany)

Promoter of the Year
presented by: Pollstar

Exit Festival (Serbia)

New Kid on the Block

Kristína Mlynárová, Pohoda Festival (Slovakia)

The Lifetime Achievement Award

Ewald Tatar (Austria)

The awards ceremony took place on the opening night of ESNS, in Groningen, The Netherlands and was hosted by IQ journalist, Lisa Henderson and A Greener Future CEO Claire O’Neill.

The European Festival Awards team would like to extend a huge thank you to all of those who participated in and attended the European Festival Awards 2025. A special thank you to their presenting partner Eventim, the European Union for the support via YOUROPE’s 3F project, ESNS, Citymesh and media partners IQ Magazine, Pollstar and Access all Areas as well as all of the European Festival Awards partners including all supporters and members of the jury.

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