Open'er is one of the biggest music festivals in Poland. It takes place every summer, at the turn of June and July, on an airfield next to Gdynia, on the Baltic coast. It has won Best Major Festival at the European Festival Awards four times, in 2009, 2010, 2019 and 2024. It didn't start there, though, and it didn't start big.
A skating track in Warsaw
The first edition was held in Warsaw in 2002, under a different name, Open Air Festival. It was a single day at Tor Stegny, an outdoor skating track, with The Chemical Brothers at the top of the bill. From 2003 to 2005 the festival moved to Gdynia and was held in Kościuszki Square in the city centre. It grew a day longer in 2004, and in 2005, with Snoop Dogg, Fatboy Slim, Faithless, The White Stripes, Lauryn Hill and Underworld on the bill, the first day's tickets sold out.
By then the square was too small. In 2006 the festival moved to its current home, the Babie Doły military airfield in Kosakowo, just outside Gdynia, now called Gdynia-Kosakowo airfield, and became a three-day event. By 2009 it was four days, with three stages playing at once and a campsite for 15,000 people. The organiser, then and now, is the Polish concert agency Alter Art. Until 2013 the festival carried a beer sponsor's name, Heineken.
How the airfield worked
Those first airfield years set the pattern. In 2006 your ticket was swapped at the gate for a wristband, and the wristband doubled as a ticket for the free buses running from the centre of Gdynia to the festival gate. A place on the campsite was included in the ticket, as long as you booked it. Inside, you paid at the stalls with coupons bought for 3 złoty each, and you couldn't bring your own drinks or professional cameras. Music ran from 5pm until about 4am, with the biggest names on at around 2am. For food and DJs there was a chill-out zone inside one of the airfield's hangars.
By 2009 the gates opened at 3pm and closed at 5am, there were day tickets and multi-day passes, and the campsite had grown to hold 15,000 people. The main stage, the World Stage and the Tent Stage all ran at the same time.
Ten years, and more than music
The tenth edition, in 2011, was a party: a commemorative album called Open'er Dekada, headline shows by Prince and Coldplay, fireworks and a birthday cake shared with the crowd. Somewhere between 90,000 and 110,000 people came. The next year Open'er changed its formula to "Music & Arts". Warsaw's Museum of Modern Art brought exhibitions to one of the airfield's hangars, and theatre arrived too, mainly with Krzysztof Warlikowski's Nowy Teatr, whose staging of Angels in America was one of the hits of 2012.
The art stayed. In 2012 the airfield got its first permanent piece, a multicoloured "Totem" by Maurycy Gomulicki, and in 2013 an installation called "Antek" by Paweł Althamer and the Nowolipie Group joined it. Theatre came back in 2013 too, with the Polish premiere of Nowy Teatr's Kabaret Warszawski alongside three other productions.
The site has kept growing. By 2016 there were five main stages: the Orange Main Stage, the Alter Stage, the Beat Stage, the Firestone Stage and the Tent Stage, plus smaller ones run by sponsors, a silent disco, and the free Gdynia Open Stage down by the sea in the city.
Every headliner
- The Chemical Brothers. Warsaw, one day.
- No headliners. Kościuszki Square, Gdynia.
- P!nk, Cypress Hill, Massive Attack, Goldfrapp.
- Snoop Dogg, Fatboy Slim, Faithless, The White Stripes, Lauryn Hill, Underworld.
- Placebo, Pharrell Williams, Manu Chao, Franz Ferdinand, Sigur Rós, Scissor Sisters, Kanye West, Basement Jaxx, The Streets and others. The first year at the airfield.
- Björk, Beastie Boys, Muse.
- Massive Attack, The Chemical Brothers, Jay-Z, Interpol.
- Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, Placebo, The Prodigy, Faith No More.
- Pearl Jam, Kasabian, Massive Attack, The Dead Weather.
- Coldplay, Prince, The Strokes, Pulp, M.I.A. The tenth edition.
- Björk, Justice, Franz Ferdinand, The Mars Volta.
- Kings of Leon, Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, Blur.
- The Black Keys, Pearl Jam, Jack White, Faith No More.
- Drake, The Libertines, Mumford & Sons, Kasabian.
- Florence and the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, Sigur Rós, Pharrell Williams, Kygo.
- Radiohead, Foo Fighters, The Weeknd, The xx, Lorde.
- Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Gorillaz, Bruno Mars.
- Travis Scott, The Strokes, The Smashing Pumpkins, Kylie Minogue, Lana Del Rey, Swedish House Mafia.
- No festival.
- Dua Lipa, Twenty One Pilots, Imagine Dragons, A$AP Rocky, The Killers. Dua Lipa's set was cancelled because of bad weather.
- Lizzo, Lil Nas X, SZA, Arctic Monkeys, Kendrick Lamar.
- Dua Lipa, Foo Fighters, Doja Cat, Hozier.
- Linkin Park, Muse, Future, Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack, Gracie Abrams.
- Florence and the Machine, The xx, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Calvin Harris, The Cure, Jennie.
- Tame Impala, The Chemical Brothers and more to come. 30 June to 3 July.
The ones who keep coming back
Count up the bills and you get 105 headline slots between 2002 and 2026, filled by 83 different acts. Eighteen of them have headlined more than once, and two have done it four times: Arctic Monkeys (2009, 2013, 2018 and 2023) and Massive Attack (2004, 2008, 2010 and 2025). That's a festival with favourites. And the gap in the middle is easy to spot: there was no Open'er in 2020 or 2021, and the festival came back in 2022 as its 19th edition.
Besides those two, the repeat headliners include Björk (2007, 2012), Placebo (2006, 2009), Kings of Leon (2009, 2013), Pearl Jam (2010, 2014), Faith No More (2009, 2014), Franz Ferdinand (2006, 2012), Sigur Rós and Pharrell Williams (both 2006 and 2016), The Strokes (2011, 2019), Kasabian (2010, 2015), Foo Fighters (2017, 2024), Muse (2007, 2025), Florence and the Machine (2016, 2026) and The xx (2017, 2026).
Dua Lipa has a particular claim to coming back. She was booked to headline in 2022, but her set, and Megan Thee Stallion's, was cancelled because of bad weather, and Doja Cat's show that year was called off too. Two years later, in 2024, both Dua Lipa and Doja Cat were back at the top of the bill.
The bills also show how the festival's taste has moved. The early headliners were mostly British dance and rock acts: The Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack, Faithless, Fatboy Slim, Underworld, Placebo. By 2023, four of the five headliners were American pop and hip-hop stars: Lizzo, Lil Nas X, SZA and Kendrick Lamar, with Arctic Monkeys the exception.
2027: back to the beginning
The 2027 festival runs from 30 June to 3 July at Gdynia-Kosakowo airfield. Tame Impala were announced as its first headliner on 24 August 2026, followed in September by Raye, Sombr, The Neighbourhood and Patti Smith. Then, in October, came the announcement with a story to it: The Chemical Brothers will headline the Orange Main Stage on 1 July 2027, exactly 25 years after they topped the bill at the very first Open'er in Warsaw in 2002. They also headlined in 2008, which makes 2027 their third time at the top.
Going to Open'er
The airfield is just north of Gdynia, which forms the Tricity with Sopot and Gdańsk, so you can stay in any of the three or camp on site. The festival runs for four days, with the biggest names on the Orange Main Stage. Pack for the Baltic weather: our festival packing list covers rain, and if it's your first time at a festival, start with your first festival.
For other festivals and their headliners, see Glastonbury, Coachella and Download. Two of Open'er's headliners have stories of their own here: The Weeknd, who played in 2017, just finished the highest-grossing tour ever by a male artist, and Depeche Mode, who headlined in 2018, are the subject of our story on “Useless”, the song they put away for 19 years.
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- History, awards, stages and every headliner 2002–2026: Wikipedia, “Open'er Festival” and Polish Wikipedia, “Open’er Festival”, read 6 Nov 2026
- 2027 dates and line-up: Open'er news, read 6 Nov 2026, and NME, 10 Oct 2026 (The Chemical Brothers)
