Fresh Wave Festival

Freshwave festival, held since 2012 at the historic Kastel Fortress in Banja Luka, is one of the most recognizable and longest-running music festivals in Southeast Europe. Every year in early August, this unique venue, which combines a thousand years of history with contemporary music culture, becomes home to thousands of visitors from the region and around the world. The 2026 edition, scheduled for August 6 to 8, brings a new festival vision united by the slogan “Enter the Nexus” — an invitation to bring together different genres, artists and energies in one shared point. Freshwave is not just a festival; it is a place where the boundaries between scenes disappear, where music becomes a common language, and where Kastel once again turns into the epicenter of summer.