Four and a half million people visit the Moscow Spring festival

Four and a half million people visited the Moscow Spring festival, held in the capital between 28 April and 9 May. This year, for the first time, the festival was united with the music contest Moscow Spring A Cappella, which is planned to be held on an annual basis from now on. This is what the Head of the Moscow Department of Trade and Services Alexei Nemeryuk said at a meeting of the Moscow Government Presidium.

Music events were organised at 38 out of the total 57 festival venues. “In total, Moscow hosted 1,500 performers from 12 countries, over 8,000 songs were sung, and there were 1,200 musical performances. In ten days, four and a half million people visited the festival venues. About 900,000 spectators enjoyed the contest performances,” the Head of the Department added.

Moscow Spring A Cappella

Concerts were organised on the city’s streets and squares, including on flights of stairs and balconies of some residential buildings in the centre, in shopping centres, at Rizhsky and Belorussky railway stations. Performances were judged by a professional jury as well as by the audience.

Winners received their awards at the final concert which, despite the bad weather, gathered two thousand people. “On 8 May, a gala-concert was held in Gorky Park, where the most talented and the winners in various categories were praised. The grand-prix was given to a group from France, for which over 17,000 users voted on the website,” Alexei Nemeryuk told mos.ru.

A Hungarian choir Fool Moon is the winner in the category of solo performers and vocal groups up to five people. The Alley Cats from the USA are second, the third prize was shared by Vocal (Spain) and SunVoice (Russia, Novosibirsk).

Prizes in the category of medium-sized vocal groups (up to 10 people) were allocated as follows: the first prize was won by the choir Micappella (Singapore), the second – by Coffeetime (Russia, Moscow), the third – by Audiofeels (Poland) and Poverye folk group (Russia, Moscow).

The city’s Honey Jazz Choir were the winners in the category of large vocal groups (from 11 people). Koukie Choir from Latvia were second, and, finally, the chamber choir of the Belgorod Philharmonic (Russia) were third.

The grand-prix (special prize) of the Moscow Spring A Capella contest went to Opus Jam from France.

Audience choice awards were given to Viktoria Cherentsova, Pyatero, QUEENtet and Crazy Little Song groups from Moscow as well as to Lunny Svet (Moonlight) from Krasnoyarsk and a male choir Russky Format (Russian Format) from Voronezh.

Moscow Spring events

The festival’s cultural programme included about 2,500 events, among them there were the following:

— 878 creative workshops, attended by 13,560 people;

— 820 interactive programmes, with 12,600 participants;

— 780 sports activities, attended by 19,300 people.

A special programme dedicated to Victory Day was organised between 8-9 May. In two days, people in Moscow watched more than 70 thematic theatrical performances. On Revolution Square, Rozhdestvenka Street, and Kamergersky Pereulok, visitors could enjoy military songs and watch literary-musical and theatrical programmes titled Victory Threshold, Letters from the Front, Vasily Tyorkin, Front Camp, Victory Railway Station, Battle for Moscow.

Festival coverage in mass media

About three thousand news items covered the events of the Moscow Spring A Capella festival in the mass media. There were 80 live broadcasts from the festival venues both in the mass media and social networks. 30 announcements were posted in large communities and groups, there were 13 publications by popular internet bloggers, 8 posts in personal accounts of performers.

As a result, the online audience comprised seven million users. Eight thousand photos and videos appeared in social networks under the festival’s hashtags.

Contest participants posted about 2,000 publications in the VKontakte network, and videos about the festival on YouTube were watched 1.5 million times.

525,000 people visited the contest page on the Moscow Mayor’s official website.