Thank you all for a great festival!

August 20th, 2025:

Oslo Jazz Festival is over for this year and reports great artistic and commercial success. Nearly 12,000 tickets were sold for this year’s festival, showing a steadily growing interest in the event, especially from a younger audience. There were numerous sold-out concerts and packed venues for the festival's extensive free program.

“It is incredibly gratifying that our clear focus on artistic quality, young talents, and creating social meeting places has paid off with excellent ticket sales and a fantastic festival atmosphere,” says festival director Line Juul.

This year, Oslo Jazz Festival made an even greater mark on the city. Over the course of the six-day festival, more than 100 concerts were held. There was great enthusiasm about the return of both the parade and the outdoor stage at Spikersuppa. During the festival’s first days, there were popup concerts in various parts of the city and free concerts in Spikersuppa, where young jazz musicians had the opportunity to showcase themselves as part of the festival’s Oslojazz Ung initiative.

“The parade featuring the youth band Sonic Sensation in brilliant sunshine down Karl Johan was a fantastic start to the festival that truly set the tone for the rest of the week. It was incredibly fun to fill the cityscape with so much jazz, to the delight of the audience, tourists, and passersby,” says Juul.

Among the festival’s many other highlights, the concerts with festival artist Joshua Redman must be mentioned. Redman performed four concerts with Norwegian musicians, and all were sold out. Other headliners such as Pat Metheny, Silje Nergaard, and Marius Neset with Leif Ove Andsnes were also sold out well in advance. It is also pleasing to report that younger Norwegian names such as Harald Lassen Balans, Charlotte Dos Santos, Eyolf Dale Trio, and Marlen Tjøsvoll were among those who sold out their concerts.

This year also saw enormous interest in the free program, with large crowds and full venues for the Oslojazz Talent concerts, buzzing activity at the jam sessions, and good attendance at the children's concerts.

“Oslo Jazz Festival truly became a celebration week for the entire jazz community in Oslo. In total, we estimate that up to 20,000 people experienced jazz in Oslo this week,” concludes Juul.

Header photo: Rohey Taalah & Trondheimsolistene. Photo: Recep Özeke.