Lizel Strömberg

5 Reasons to attend Göteborgs Kulturkalas
 
Göteborgs Kulturkalas is just around the corner! This year the festival takes place 14th - 19th of August. In this post you will get to know 5 Reasons to attend Göteborgs Kulturkalas and some recommendations of what you should see and what to think about when attending it.
 
(This event is totally free of admission, the only fee you need to pay is for everything that are for sale during the markets and food places.)
For those who are not familiar to Göteborgs Kulturkalas, it's a festival that takes place every year in the middle of August in Gothenburg for 6 days. It's one of the biggest culture festivals in Scandinavian. There's lots of different activities around the city of Gothenburg. You can experience everything from workshops for dance, crafts, art to seeing movies, theathers and to hear different kinds of music. At the festival there's also plenty of opportunities to experience new food from all the corners of the world. Here's 5 reasons of why you should attend Göteborgs kulturkalas:
 
1. Learn new things:
During Kulturkalaset, there's a lot of opportunities to learn something new. You can find different kinds of workshops through out the event. For example, last year we came across Twisted Feet Family, a dance acedemy who were teaching people how to dance. You can also create art, different crafts and even learn how to do origami. Another particular skill you can get to experience and get introduce to is various martial arts. 
 
2. Taste new food!
Kulturkalaset has all different kinds of food cultures throughout the festival area. If you ever wanted to experience a new kind of food, there's lots of opportunities to do so at this event. You can find various dishes, desserts and treats to taste. To name a few of the many different cultures/countries that are represented on the scene, here are some: Thailand, France, Poland, Germany, Spain, Turkey and one of the most recent additions is African food. Mind that, a lot of these food stands only can take cash and some of them use "Swish". The average price for a portion of food is around 50kr (4,60€/5,30 USD) to 80-90kr, almost never over 100kr. 
One thing I will let you have in mind when thinking about buying food is that it can get very crowded, specially around 12-1pm or 4-6pm since around that time a lot of Swedes usually go and eat. I would recommend you to visit "International Street Market" which is usually placed at Gustav Adolfs Torg. You can find numerous of different kinds of food but also handmade crafts. The people there are very friendly and are happy to help you out if needed. Most of the pictures in this post of food and the people working with it are actually from that market. 
 
3. Experience new cultures!
You can experience many different cultures at the festival regardless if it's when you buy food, seeing different performances or taking part of the activities in the program. One of the biggest events during the festival is the "Hammarkullekarnevalen" which is a big parade (carneval) which shows the traditional side of the clothing, music and dance of the Latin community. It's a very nice parade with lots of colours, smiling faces and fun! I highly recommend you to see this parade as it's one of the last things happening during the Kulturkalas. 
The parade usually begins around 1pm at the top of "Avenyn" by "Götaplatsen" and walks down to "Kungsportsplatsen" which makes it able for people to watch it anywhere down along the way of "Avenyn". It gets very crowded as many people wants to see the parade. If you want to get a good spot to be able to see everything I would recommend you to make sure to be there in time. 
 
4. Listen to various music!
One of the main reasons why people attend Kulturkalaset is to see and experience the concerts and street performances that happens around the streets of Göteborg. If you are a fan of Swedish pop, I highly recommend  you to check out Kulturkalaset and to see what it offers. Because every year, there's lots of artists performing both locals, mainstream artists in Sweden and international artists from different parts of the world. There are numerous stages such as "Kungsportsplatsen", "Kajskjul 8", "Bältespännaparken" and "Götaplatsen". The music that gets performed on the festival isn't only pop, but also dansband, hip hop, classical and more! On the last day of the festival it ends with RIX FM Festival. It's always a lot of people on these concerts.
If you are a fan of a particular artist and wants to que to get a spot, that's totally fine. People come and go as the day goes by, and even if people come there to start queing before you, it's not always certain that they will be there for the whole day. If there are numerous concerts happening on the same stage during the day, what you could do is to ask the people in front of you who they are there to see. If they happen to be there to someone else than what you have planned you can come up with a deal and change places so you can get front row for that particular artists you want to. I can't promise this will work but it's just an idéa and something I've done myself in previous years. 
 
5. With EuroPride, the event is bigger than ever!
Something that is different this year from previous years is that Göteborgs Kulturkalas has a collaboration with EuroPride which makes the festival even bigger than ever! EuroPride arrange workshops, lectures, spread well needed information/help to the LGBTQ community but also information to everyone else about the work they do, to decrease the prejudice and discrimination that the LGBTQ comminty face in everyday life. I fully support Pride and the LGBTQ community, I think it's important that these festivals are there. I like that the Pride festivals can create an event and venue for people to feel welcome no matter which sexual orientation, gender and ethnicity you have. You are welcome as long as you don't have the attention to harm anyone.
I'm looking forward getting to experience Europride for the first time and to see all the coloruful people that will be there. I will do my part in showing my support to the LGBTQ community with sharing photos from this event. It's not much but that's what I can do for the moment. 
With this being said, be careful out there. It will be crowded in the city during this event, even more so because it's bigger this year. Stay hydrated, be nice to one and other and look out for each other. One thing you should have in mind is that the public tranportation can be limited because of all the construction work and can be a bit of a hassle to take but you can always ask someone for help.
That was it for my 5 reasons why you should attend Göteborgs Kulturkalas. I will be on set to photograph the festivities around Göteborg all week. If you happen to be there and you see me, you are more than welcome to come ad say hi. Also if you know there will be an artist performing that you would want me to photograph, don't hesitate to reach out to me and let me know. I will have it in consideration when make plans. I will try to do most of this event, create content I will be proud over, get new contacts but also have a nice time with my friends experiencing the event. 
 
If you want to read more about Göteborgs Kulturkalas and look through the program, you can find all the information at: https://goteborgskulturkalas.se/
(The information is available in english too for those who wants that.)
Make sure to follow me on my Instagram to catch the latest updates from Göteborgs Kulturkalas and to get a bit of an insight of how things looks like on set. You can find me at @LIZELSTROMBERG. There will be lots of other updates before the festival takes place if you want to get to know what I'm up to. 
 
 

Earlier this week, I went to Slottskogen to attend Diggiloo which is one of Sweden’s biggest shows. It was my first time seeing the show and I was very excited to be getting the opportunity to photograph it. There were lots of well known artists performing such as Charlotte Perrelli, Tommy Nilsson, David Lindgren and Mariette. I really enjoy watching the show and to hear all of the well known songs from these recent years but also from the past. If you want to get a glimpse of the show, go on my profile to see my saved stories. 📲 • • This photograph is of Marika Carlson (comedian), Ida Redig and Ola Salo. One of the things I really liked about the show was how their different outfits matched well together with the colour scheme of the stage for the various songs. My full blog post with more photographs from the show will be coming within a week. Stay tuned! 📸✨

Ett inlägg delat av Lizel Strömberg 🇵🇭🇸🇪 (@lizelstromberg) 28 Jul 2018 kl. 1:07 PDT

 
 
Until next time, ingat!
/Lizel