Statement

Flow Festival’s statement on festival ownership, May 26, 2025.
(Updated on July 9, with details concerning Superstruct’s investment transactions, and on August 6, with details concerning KKR’s investments and the link to the Helsingin Sanomat article.)

In 2018, Flow Festival was acquired by the British live entertainment platform Superstruct Entertainment, which owns around 80 festivals in Europe and Australia. Since November 2024 Superstruct, in turn, has been backed by several investors, such as the global investment firm KKR that has been investing into Superstruct through its European fund. The transaction occurred between different investment companies, and Flow hasn’t participated in the negotiations. All revenue and profits from Superstruct’s events and festivals remain entirely within the business and go towards the ongoing development and staging of Superstruct’s festivals across the world. Flow Festival is part of a multinational corporation, but unlike many other multinational operators in the music business, Superstruct doesn’t operate in Israel on any level.

Since the founding of our festival, we have been committed to promoting a diverse and equal music culture. Art, in all its diversity, has always been at the core of Flow. Our mission has been to develop Helsinki’s cultural scene and present interesting and current music and cultural phenomena. This remains our mission now and in the future. We are still an autonomous cultural company that operates locally, respecting equality, justice and equity. International ownership relations have not affected this.

The public discussion of KKR’s investments in Israel has raised concerns among us and our friends. We have actively discussed the issue with the lead of Superstruct and other festivals in our network. However, KKR is only remotely related to Israel, as significant number of its investments have nothing to do with Israel. Furthermore, KKR’s investments in Israel are not affiliated to weapons industry in any way. You can find more information about the subject in this article published by Helsingin Sanomat here (Finnish only).

However, we want to make it clear that we explicitly condemn Israel’s horrifying genocide and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, which violate the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people and international law.

See Superstruct’s statement here.