29.04.2020.

LAMPA 2020: How to experience the festival this year

The LAMPA Conversation Festival will always find a way for conversations about important issues to continue. The festival will take place this year as well, and people will be able to experience it. LAMPA will take place from September 2 to 5, and, as usual, participation will be free of charge both online and in person. The world is changing – the conversations must continue!

Watch live on the website

This year, all of the festival events will be streamed live online, allowing people to follow along wherever they may be at the moment, whether in Latvia or elsewhere in the world, whether alone or with friends and family. The main festival “venue” will be the festival website, where all of this year’s events will be shown live and also made available for viewing later from the website’s archive. Some events will take place as virtual meetings on video conferencing platforms.

Participate in person

In-person attendance at many festival events is possible! Most of these events will take place in several studios in Cēsis, Riga and Rēzekne. Also, some event organisers will be opening their offices, courtyards, and other venues to the public. However, space at these events is limited. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, and all attendees must adhere to social-distancing rules. Find information about attendance to each event in the forthcoming programme on the festival website next to the description of the event.

Experience communal viewing sites

We encourage people to experience LAMPA together with other people; therefore, we have launched a communal-viewing movement. A communal viewing site can be located anywhere: a library, cultural centre, apartment building courtyard, private yard or café in Latvia or beyond its borders, where anyone who is interested can join others to watch LAMPA and participate in a conversation about the festival events. Anyone can organise a communal viewing site. The only rule is that it be open and easily accessible to anyone who wishes to participate and join the conversation.

In late August, a map indicating all official LAMPA watching sites will be published on the festival website so that everyone can find a site nearest to and most appropriate for them to enjoy this year’s festival.

Festival programme

Although this year’s LAMPA will take place under unusual circumstances, its programme will be just as exciting as in previous years. With more than 150 events in Latvian, English and Russian, we will discuss issues that are important to society today. The festival programme is developed by many active individuals, non-governmental organisations, businesses, local governments and state institutions. It will be published in early August and be updated regularly until the start of the festival.