Elevate Festival

The aim of the festival is to create a better understanding of the most important issues of our time and to discuss groundbreaking alternatives, innovative projects, and various initiatives in the realm of civil society, social movements and dedicated activism.

The starting point for the idea to combine music and political discourse was the Exit-Space event on local cultural policy making in Graz in 2003.

[6] The festival was dedicated to the topic "Elevate the Crises" with guests such as Amy Goodman, Pat Mooney, Christian Felber, Raimund Löw or Anneliese Rohrer.

- guests like Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Anne Roth discussed radical openness in technology, innovation, activism, and politics.

[11] To honour the 10th anniversary of the festival the theme "Elevate #10 – Discourse & Activism" invited scientists like John Holloway, computer engineers like Micah Lee and artists such as Antonino D'Ambrosio to draw lessons from the past and look into the future.

[15] The Elevate Festival 2019 explores and debates the concept of "Truth" with guests like animal rights activist Pamela Anderson, poet Nnimmo Bassey, and philosopher Srećko Horvat.

The philosopher Ariadne von Schirach, the film maker Douglas Rushkoff and the activist Elizabeth Wathuti are among the guests in the discourse program.