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This year’s festival season kicked off with a bang in the Netherlands: The Eurosonic Noorderslag Festival (ESNS), Europe’s largest live music showcase event, took place in Groningen from 17 to 20 January. Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg was actively engaged in promoting artists, networking, and participating in various conferences to gain insights into the future trends of the industry. A delegation of professionals from Luxembourg (including den Atelier, de Gudde Wëllen, Kulturfabrik, opderschmelz, Rotondes, Beast, Cooperations, Them Lights, Konektis Entertainment amongst others) also attended the showcase festival to foster connections, engage with industry experts, and explore emerging talents. Two Luxembourgish artists stood out in the packed festival line-up:  CHAiLD and C’est Karma.

On the opening night of the festival, CHAiLD wowed the international audience with a phenomenal performance at Simplon UP. With his appearance at ESNS and Reeperbahn Festival in September last year, CHAiLD has played both of Europe’s major showcase festivals in the space of just four months. This underlines his growing prominence on the European music scene.

C’est Karma (selected by Luxembourg’s public radio station 100,7) took the stage on Thursday in front of a packed house of delegates and fans at VERA, a legendary venue that hosted bands like Nirvana, U2, Sonic Youth and Soundgarden in the 1980s. As is common practice at showcase festivals, each performance at the ESNS is limited to a maximum of 40 minutes. In this short period of time, C’est Karma was able to completely captivate the audience and allow them to lose themselves in her fascinating musical cosmos. The performance  was recorded by the German public TV channel WDR and is set to air on their renowned program Rockpalast on the 18^th of March 2024.

Playing at ESNS not only means playing at the festival in January. Acts that play at the festival also take part in the ESNS Exchange programme. ESNS Exchange facilitates the booking of European acts at festivals outside their home countries and works with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), export offices and local media (the Luxembourgish partner is 100,7) to generate significant media exposure for these artists. This way, ESNS Exchange aims to give a boost to the international careers of European artists.

The coming year will certainly have a lot in store for CHAiLD and C’est Karma.