This year Moscow’s Red Square for the eleventh time in a row hosted the Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival.
Over these eleven years the Spasskaya Tower Festival welcomed more than 160 artistic groups from 54 countries, became one of the largest international events of the country’s cultural life and secured its right to be among the top three such events on par with the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, held in Scotland since 1950, and Basel Military Tattoo, held in Switzerland since 2006.
Each and every year the popularity of the Festival has steadily been growing with military bands and artistic groups now submitting their applications to the Festival’s Directorate well in advance.
Twenty two bands, two honor guard units and two dance groups took part in the 2018 Festival’s evening shows. Representatives of Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Monaco, Myanmar, Holland, Oman, Switzerland, Sri Lanka as well as International Celtic Pipes and Drums and International Irish Dance Team, all in all 1500 artists, stepped onto the cobblestone of Red Square along Russian military musicians. More than a hundred music compositions performed by 767 and 157 wind and percussion instruments, respectively, filled the air of this year’s evening shows.
The Festival is popular among all the categories of audiences attracting wide attention both of Russian and international media. According to the Smyslografia Analytical Agency and Mediologia Information Analytical System, media of thirty six countries mentioned the Spasskaya Tower Festival in its publications. Moreover, it has become the most cited military music event of the year getting ahead of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the oldest festival of the kind, and receiving its outmost attention from media resources representing Great Britain, Spain and the USA.
The audiences of this year’s Festival night shows alone scored more than 90,000 people. All in all more than 500,000 of Muscovites and guests of the capital attended events executed by the Spasskaya Tower Festival’s Directorate. All in all 105 media representatives, including 23 foreign agencies, covered the events of the Festival. The Media Center issued 1506 accreditations for reporters and bloggers. Thus, the overall audience coverage of the project featuring the media campaign, Internet and TV broadcasts totaled in more than 550 millions of people all over the world.
Although the Eleventh Spasskaya Tower Festival ended less than two months ago the organizers have already turned all their attention and streamed all their energies in executing the next Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival, the twelfth in a row, which as a matter of good tradition will be held on Red Square at the end of August — beginning of September 2019.