Moscow's Outline Festival Tonight Was Forced To Close

Moscow’s Outline Festival, which was scheduled to host performances over the weekend starting tonight, July 2, has announced on Facebook that it has been cancelled.

According to the Google translation of the post, it reads, “Attention! The Festival will be held not beyond the control of the organizers of the reasons. The money for the tickets will be returned.” According to Russian-language news stories, the government asserts that Outline failed to provide proper licensing for the event, and military forces arrived on site to prevent the organizers from opening doors and protestors from rioting in front of the site. Outline refuted these claims in an official statement, which you can read in full below.

No replacement venue has been announced, and Outline’s note clarifies that they were prohibited from doing so. Musicians such as Ricardo Villalobos, Philipp Gorbachev and Magda were scheduled to play at the event, which also included elaborate art installations at the disused MoZAL plant and expected to draw between 15,000 and 20,000 people. The festival has not yet given any official statement besides the Facebook post, but we will communicate more information as we get it.

“This afternoon government officials entered the Outline grounds unannounced and prevented the organizers and workers from setting up the festival’s stages, installations and infrastructure—despite the fact that Outline applied for and received all permits and licenses necessary to throw the event in a legally appropriate amount of time. Due to these unfortunate circumstances beyond our control, the festival was forced to close and was prohibited from moving to other venues in the city. Outline is deeply saddened by the authorities’ decision to shut down the event, and we sincerely regret the inconvenience to all of our guests in Moscow, throughout Russia and around the world. We would like to thank all of the artists, crew and volunteers who put so much love and time into building out all of the installations and stages on site. We would like to list the artists here who’s work will sadly not be exhibited.
STFNV
Nootk
Naiti
4S4R
Adil Aubekerov
Mediamed
Volna
Igor Skaletskiy
Laboratory ABC
Ekaterina Konovalova
Tatyana Ludanik
Vlad Omutov
Galya Chriva
Dashe Ilunga
Tanya Fabrique
Ilya Visokosov
Fedor Miller
Vitai Viazi
Lisa Shahno
4S4R
Yan Kalnberzin & Polina Bakhtina
Daria Tihonova
Roman Fedorov
Ilya Gureev
Tundra
Laboratory ABC
Pavlik Kuznetsov
Sodahaus
Ivan Ninety
Obrev
Antonia Lev
Quel
Gred
Ura Ulchinson
Kieran Behan (Crystal Mafia)
Marie Alice Brandner-Wolfszahn – (Crocodilopolis)
Idan Hayosh & Morten J. Olsen
Maser
Pim Palsgraaf
Willem Besselink
Daan Botlek
Mosa 87 + Pablo Tomek
RaumZeitPiraten
Murat Adash
Cristian Wolf
Despite the devastating turn of events Outline will stand strong against the powers that be and continue to create spaces where we are free to do what we love.”