The World's Northernmost Blues Festival | Dark Season Blues

Welcome to the Dark Season Blues
- the world’s northernmost blues festival

The festival is an annual event in late October at 78 degrees north in Longyearbyen (Svalbard), and marks the beginning of the dark season when daylight and the sun is about to leave Svalbard for four long winter months. The first Dark Season Blues festival was arranged in 2003 and will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2012. It started out as a small intimate festival, and proudly presented 15 bands spread on 17 events in 2010. The beginning of the dark season, with its blue light, is perfect for those blue notes and provides a unique atmosphere. The festival can offer four great days with local, Norwegian and international blues artists spread across most of Longyearbyen’s venues.

Show Dark Season Blues in a big map

The festival includes blues lunch and a blues dinner, and has events at the school, in the church, and even the kindergarten is visited by our artists. It all ends with a blues jam where the audience gets the opportunity to play together with their blues hero. The intimate local conditions mean that artists, audiences and locals mingle throughout the weekend. This creates unforgettable memories and many of our guests come back year after year.

We make an effort to book BLUES ARTISTS, and since the beginning we have offered Longyearbyen’s citizens and visitors a range of the blues genre that’s exciting, varied, with high quality, and a popular appeal.

The festival is based on voluntary work, and a dedicated team spends a lot of time to get the festival up and running. The volunteers are invaluable for carrying out Svalbard’s biggest event. The economic goal is to break even, and any surplus is transferred to next year’s festival.

We thank all of those who make the festival possible; residents, visitors, volunteers, artists, and especially our sponsors and partners!

Longyearbyen Blues Club – the organizer of the Dark Season Blues