Tromsø World, the city’s festival for music from across the globe, returns from Thursday 29 to Saturday 31 October 2026 with concerts on stages throughout central Tromsø. Running alongside it on Friday 30 and Saturday 31 October, Tromsø World PRO brings artists, cultural workers, organisers and policymakers together for panels, presentations and a workshop on climate, diversity, accessibility, tourism, Indigenous perspectives and the place of culture in the development of cities.
This is the festival’s fifth edition. According to the organisers, more than 40 artists representing around 40 nationalities will take part.
From one-day events to a three-day festival
In its own account of its history, Tromsø World traces its beginnings to a series of one-day events held between 2018 and 2021. These presented artists including Les Amazones d’Afrique and DJ Nefertiti, and closed in 2021 with a concert by Amadou & Mariam. In 2022 the initiative became a three-day festival, held that year in November.
The company behind the festival, Tromsø World Festival AS, was founded in March 2022 by Nasra Ali Omar and Vasil Gjuroski, according to a grant record published by SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge’s Samfunnsløftet programme. The same record states that Omar withdrew from the company in spring 2023. Gjuroski leads the festival as festival director.
In a 2025 DJ Mag feature on Tromsø’s electronic music scene, Omar, a drummer and percussionist, described a formative moment at Insomnia, the city’s electronic music festival. When Insomnia collaborated with the Nyege Nyege festival and brought the artists Bamba Pana and Hibotep to Tromsø, she recognised in their work the East African drumming she had grown up with. That experience, she told the magazine, was what led her to start working towards a world music festival.
Tromsø World has worked closely with Oslo World, which it describes as its “mothership”. The two festivals belong to MOVEMENT, a Norwegian network for programming and promoting artists across festivals, which according to Tromsø World also includes Molde Mundo, Bergen International Music Festival and Skien World.
Recognition followed within a few years. In July 2024, Norske Kulturarrangører (Norwegian Live), the national association for cultural organisers, presented the festival in Tromsø with its Newcomer of the Year award for 2023, chosen by a vote among organisers across Norway. In 2025 Tromsø World received the Future Festival Award from UPBEAT, a European showcase platform for world music, which cited the festival’s role as a sustainable arena for multicultural art and cultural communication.
The festival’s funding illustrates how it has positioned itself locally. In March 2024, Samfunnsløftet granted NOK 2.1 million towards the 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions. In the project description attached to that grant, the festival notes that Tromsø is home to residents of more than 140 nationalities, and states the aim of increasing cultural participation among the city’s multicultural minorities.
The 2026 edition: music across the city
The official timetable lists concerts on eleven stages, including the main stage and Lillescenen at Kulturhuset, Amtmandens, Bastard Bar, Blårock, Verdensteatret, Storgata Camping, Café Sånn, Tankrommet and Bryggeriet Scene, as well as Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum.
On Thursday, the Palestinian vocalist Nai Barghouti performs on Kulturhuset’s main stage with the Norwegian musicians Tord Gustavsen, Steinar Raknes and Ruven Ruppik. The same evening features GRÓA from Iceland, Frente Cumbiero from Colombia and Rizan Said from Syria.
Friday’s main-stage concert is by Katarina Barruk, whom the festival presents as an artist from Sápmi, Norway and Sweden. Other Friday performers include Mazaher from Egypt, Meral Polat from the Netherlands and Torino Unlimited Noise from Italy. Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum also becomes a concert venue that evening, with sets by Gangere and the Kven act Saunasatan.
On Saturday, BCUC from South Africa play Bryggeriet Scene and Imarhan from Algeria perform at Amtmandens, while Storgata Camping hosts GABBA and Charlotte Bendiks, followed by a DJ set by Jehnny Beth.
This year the festival has moved from single-concert tickets to festival passes and day passes. On Saturday, Tromsø World Free presents a programme of free concerts, workshops, talks and other activities around the city, with no festival ticket required.
More information: Festival timetable · Artists · Tromsø World Free
Tromsø World PRO: culture and the future of the city
Tromsø World PRO is the festival’s professional programme, developed in collaboration with Musikkontoret Nord. It is aimed at artists, organisers, cultural institutions, businesses, policymakers and international guests, and runs over two days with different formats. Friday is a full-day conference with a ticket that includes lunch and the afternoon workshop. Saturday’s talks and panels take place at several venues and are free and open to everyone.
Friday 30 October: climate, diversity and accessibility
The conference begins at 10:00 at Tankrommet, Bryggeriet Scene, with a presentation by Julie Forchhammer of the Norwegian non-profit Klimakultur. Under the title Culture to help a world that’s going up in flames?, she will address how arts and culture can stop enabling the fossil fuel sector and other destructive industries. Her current work focuses on climate disinformation and on how such industries use arts and culture to gain public acceptance.
At 10:40, the panel When diversity becomes a buzzword, moderated by Yohan Shanmugaratnam with Salum Kashafali, Martha Hofsøy and Ragnhild Dahlheim Eriksen, asks whether diversity remains a meaningful tool for change in Norway, or has become a term that institutions adopt without changing their structures and practices.
At 11:50, Ingrid Døssland of Musikkontoret Brak presents Bedre Rom, an online resource offering practical advice and tools for venues, cultural organisations and event organisers working on accessibility, inclusive communication and more diverse booking.
Culture and creative industries as drivers of city development
After lunch, the central session of the day begins at 13:15. The panel Culture and creative industries as drivers of city development is moderated by Bodil Kjelstrup, with Roar Dons, Eirik Losnegaard Mevik, Siri Arntzen-Ratnarajan, the Sámi architect and artist Joar Nango, Martine Lødding and Maria Rut Reynisdottir. It brings together perspectives from culture, the creative industries, business and community development to ask how artists and cultural organisations influence the places they work in, and what role they might play in shaping them.
Participants then walk to Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum for a workshop at 14:45, led by Kristina Junttila. The workshop description names a specific problem: artists and cultural organisations are often invited into development processes only after the major decisions have been made. It asks what would need to change in the relationship between cultural actors, public authorities, businesses and local communities for them to be involved earlier.
The distinction is worth noting. Cultural activity and participation in planning are not the same thing: a city can host a busy cultural calendar while the people who produce it have little say in decisions about the buildings, public spaces and neighbourhoods they depend on. The day closes at 15:45 with a session that aims to gather the workshop’s conclusions into a short set of shared principles on the role of culture and the creative industries in place development. The programme ends at 16:00.
Saturday 31 October: free talks across the city
Saturday’s programme opens at 11:15 at Tromsø Library with Tourism vs. local culture: building places without losing identity, moderated by Martha Otte, with Maria Rut Reynisdottir, Trond Overås and Siri Therese Lier. The panel looks at what happens when tourism begins to shape the culture it depends on, and how local voices can remain central in place branding and destination development. The question has a clear local dimension: according to Visit Tromsø, the city recorded more than 1.3 million commercial overnight stays in 2025, an increase of around ten per cent on the previous year, driven mainly by international visitors.
At 12:15, Kine Olsen moderates Culture and climate: building a sustainable festival sector with Julie Runge and Julie Forchhammer, drawing on experience from Iceland Airwaves, Klimakultur and Tromsø World’s sustainability collaboration with Iceland.
At 13:10, Perspektivet Museum hosts Indigenous and local voices in contemporary art, moderated by Jonathan Crossen with Sigbjørn Skåden, Kjersti Anfinnsen and Kirsti Lervoll. The conversation addresses language, belonging, territory, memory and cultural representation in work connected to northern landscapes and Indigenous perspectives. It takes place in the same week that Skåden was announced as the winner of the 2026 Nordic Council Literature Prize for his novel Láŋtdievvá / Planterhaug, the first work written in Sámi to receive the prize in 35 years.
At 14:00, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum presents an artist talk with the musician and actor Jehnny Beth in conversation with Darek Mazzone, in collaboration with Lørdag kl. 2. Later in the afternoon, Siri Kvambe introduces Samspill International Music Network at Backbeat at 15:30, and Sandeep Singh moderates Art, migration and belonging with Gelareh Pour, Solvei Stenslie and Gabriela Garrubo at 16:00.
The final sessions take place at Amtmandens, Industrirommet: a presentation of the Nordic event platform Broadcast by Stine Mari Røverdatter at 16:30, a presentation of the Lebanese festival Beirut & Beyond by its artistic and programme director Yara Mrad at 17:00, and, at 17:30, a conversation between André Marmot and the music journalist Jane Cornwell about Marmot’s book Unapologetic Expression: The Inside Story of the UK Jazz Explosion.
More information: Tromsø World PRO programme · About Tromsø World PRO
Questions that extend beyond the festival
Taken together, the PRO sessions raise questions that concern artists, museums, independent initiatives and public institutions across Northern Norway, not only the music sector. How can cultural life remain accessible as a city changes? How can tourism and local culture coexist without one being reshaped to serve the other? And how can cultural organisations take part in decisions about the places where they work, rather than being consulted once those decisions have been made?
None of these questions will be settled over two days. The Friday workshop’s aim of producing a shared statement on culture and place development offers one concrete measure of what the conference can achieve: whether that statement is taken up by the institutions and authorities it addresses will only become clear after the festival.
Tromsø World 2026
Thursday 29 – Saturday 31 October 2026
Concerts at venues across central Tromsø
Festival passes and day passes available
Tromsø World PRO
Friday 30 October, 10:00–16:00: conference at Tankrommet, Bryggeriet Scene, and workshop at Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (ticketed; includes lunch and workshop)
Saturday 31 October, from 11:15: talks and panels at Tromsø Library, Perspektivet Museum, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Backbeat and Amtmandens (free and open to everyone)
Official website: tromsoworld.com · PRO programme · Timetable