Eight years have passed since the creation of the international music festival, All My Friends are Stars. Created by Nicholas Sosin and Americk Lewis, both American musicians, these young artists set down their bags full of dreams in Gothenburg, Sweden, aspiring to show the world what many people didn't seem to see: authentic music. Preaching diversity and uniqueness over trends, it's a bet they've obviously won, because today, since May 2023, they've been inaugurating their 8th edition with some new features: participation in events such as the 400th anniversary of Gothenburg and their first concert in France, in Paris.
Let's find out more about their experience and the process of creating and developing a music festival with an exclusive interview with co-founder Nicholas Sosin.
What are the things that have changed since the creation of All My Friends are Stars? And why did you make these changes?
We’ve grown a lot and are at a point where we have multiple events all summer long and so we have grown so much from the first year when we only did one event!
Now, what are the things that haven’t changed? And how did this help your festival last and improve durably?
Since the 1st year of our festival, we've taken great care to create the right atmosphere for the performers and to give our guests the best possible vibes. For us, it's essential that our concerts are friendly, trusting and fun, because for some of them it's their first time performing. We've had the good fortune and honour of working with many emerging artists and introducing them to an audience for the first time in their career - it's rewarding to see them progress alongside us and to have their talent and work praised by our community of music and art lovers.
How do you find new artists to introduce to your festival each year?
Our casting process is very inclusive. We don’t have any strict criterias unlike other organizations in the music industry. Artists are everywhere to be found : in shows, through friends and mutuals, in the streets… We also invite artists to get involved in our festivals by on our submission page : www.allmyfriendsarestars.com/submit
This year you’ve taken a big step in this adventure with your first Paris concert! Can you tell us more about it?
We have a new program called Mini-Festival and it’s an amazing opportunity to learn how to plan your own music event with 3 artists. We teach everything from start to finish. Email us! minifestival@allmyfriendsarestars.com
If you had to describe your festival in 3 words at the beginning and 3 for this year festival, what would they be?
The first would be summed up in these 4 words : idea, fun and celebration while our 8th year would be 13 events, amazing and biggest ! In other words, we never lost our identity and this is what kept us growing and enabled us to arrive at this point where we see our festival getting bigger and better each day.
Finally, can you tease us a bit about your upcoming project for your festival?
We will be doing a festival on August 5 in Timmervik! August 31 at Frihamsdagarna and September 1 at Göteborg Kulturkalas… As said before, we try our best to include any type of arts not only music… This is why during our next date on August 5th in Timmervick, we’d be introducing talend musicians such as Lara Kaynar or Dina Grundberg but also dancers with the World Music Culture Club ! For more informations, we invite you to check our website : www.allmyfriendsarestars.com
8 years of work and 8 years of fun and kindness... Just what the music industry needed! All My Friends are Stars festival has stood out and prospered over the years because the founders have kept to their identity right to the end: to be an inclusive festival promoting talent that the world didn't yet know it needed.