Elevate Festival Graz
Every autumn, Graz hosts a festival you won’t easily find anywhere else. Elevate combines electronic music, contemporary art and political debate into one coherent whole — and a large part of the programme is completely free. Workshops, lectures and outdoor concerts are freely accessible; only some of the club nights require a ticket. For those who want to think and dance, Elevate is unique in Europe.
✅ Mostly free — a large part of the Elevate Festival is free. Some concerts and club nights require tickets.
Mostly free — extensive programme of workshops, lectures and outdoor concerts is completely free. Some club nights require a ticket.
What makes Elevate special
Most festivals choose: music or ideas. Elevate refuses that distinction. The festival is built on the conviction that art and politics are not separate. Climate change, digital rights, social equality, urban politics — the speakers and artists share the same stage.
What you’ll find
Electronic music ranging from techno and ambient to experimental and club. Free lectures and debates by international thinkers, activists and researchers. Art installations throughout the festival venues in Graz’s UNESCO World Heritage historic city centre.
Musically, the programme focuses on electronic music in the broadest sense: techno, ambient, experimental, club. Artists from the international underground scene travel to Graz specifically for sets rarely heard in bigger, more commercial cities. It’s exactly that combination of small scale and international quality that gives the festival its own identity.
A free daytime discourse programme
During the day, everything revolves around the discourse programme, which is entirely free. International thinkers, activists and researchers speak on the themes the festival puts at its centre, in sessions open to everyone with no registration required. Artworks and installations are also scattered throughout the festival venues, exploring the same themes in a different way — with Graz’s historic old town, a UNESCO World Heritage site, forming a backdrop few other festival cities can match.
What sets Elevate apart from comparable festivals is how seamlessly day and night flow into each other. Visitors attend an afternoon lecture on digital rights and stand on a dance floor for an underground act that same evening — without it ever feeling like a break. That interplay is exactly what makes Elevate something different from a music festival with a side programme, or a conference with some music attached.
The Elevate Festival takes place in 2026 in October or November; exact dates are listed on the website. Lectures, workshops and some concerts are free to attend; club nights require a ticket, usually at an affordable price for a festival of this calibre. The festival takes place across several venues in Graz, Styria, and is easily reached by train from Vienna (about two and a half hours) or Salzburg. Anyone who can should plan for at least two days.
Practical info
- • Date 2026: October/November (exact dates via website)
- • Entry: lectures, workshops and some concerts free; club nights with ticket
- • Location: various venues in Graz, Styria, Austria
- • Getting there: train from Vienna (~2.5 hrs) or Salzburg
- • Tip: plan at least two days — the combination of day sessions and evening music has its own rhythm
- • More info: elevate.at