Awareness raising: Special Zones

• Creator: Music Saves UA & YOUROPE
• Published in: 2024

Many of the activities described above can be organized by the festival on its own. That being said, your mission can greatly benefit from inviting people from your charity of choice and letting them set up a zone at the festival. Such an area can act as a hub, connecting all the related activities together. It would also give your audience a chance to take a deeper dive into the cause by interacting with people who represent it.

In the case of Music Saves Ukraine, having the team on site adds an extra dimension to how we engage people on the topic of Ukraine. Every Music Saves Ukraine zone is always unique as we discuss it with the organisers and try to create something that fits the audience and utilises the space given to the fullest potential.

Here is what you can find at a Music Saves Ukraine festival zone:

• Our amazing team. Since the Music Saves Ukraine team is based in Ukraine, we always bring our experiences with us, and this will be a chance for your audience to interact with Ukrainians who are still based in Ukraine and experience the reality of war every single day. When they have such interaction, it quite often changes their perspective – they actively engage in conversations and ask questions, and this war becomes more personal for them, inspiring them to help more.
• Info stand about the Ukrainian Association of Music Events and Music Saves Ukraine. This stand gives background explanations on who we are, what we were doing before the war, what our mission is and what kind of humanitarian help we provide with the money that we raise.
• Info stand about musicians and artists who serve in the military and those who have sacrificed their lives while defending Ukraine. Sadly, this stand has to be updated frequently. It is essential to remind people outside of Ukraine that this war is fought by regular people, including musicians and artists who dropped their careers to defend the country. Their names and art deserve to be known.
• Info stands about the war and the damage it caused. These stands put the war in Ukraine into perspective. We use comparisons to show the size of Ukraine compared to other European countries to demonstrate the scope of the Russian invasion; we show various statistics and provide context so that people’s understanding becomes more concrete and the war less abstract. 
• Charity merchandise that we sell for donations. Ukrainian-themed t-shirts, hoodies, socks, accessories, stickers, flags, and little souvenirs. 100% of what we get from selling these items goes towards humanitarian help by Music Saves Ukraine. 
• Special Ukrainian make-up for donations. Sometimes, we offer aqua or eco-glitter make-up or temporary tattoos with Ukrainian colours and symbolism, which is especially popular with children. 
• Video content for a screen or VR content. If possible, we bring a VR headset that shows Ukrainian vistas and the results of the invasion, or we set up a screen that shows videos about Music Saves Ukraine and Ukrainian culture. 

• Ukrainian-themed art installations. With the festival’s help, we can prepare various art installations that can be set up outside the tent/zone to attract visitors. They can be interactive, allowing people to colour things in or leave a message for Ukraine.
• Other activities. For example, a quiz where people needed to listen to songs by Ukrainian artists and match them correctly with artist descriptions – an activity we ran with Music Export Ukraine at the Pohoda Festival. 

To bring a Music Saves Ukraine zone to a festival, we ask the festival about the following: 

• Space for the zone: we ask to provide a tent for our zone, the size of which can vary between 6x3m, 5x5m or even 3x3m if no other option is available. If a bigger tent or more space is available, we can bring something extra to make the zone better. If the festival has tents or huts in its NGO zone, we can use those instead and build the zone’s content around them.
• Accommodation: we ask to provide accommodation where the team would stay throughout the festival. Depending on the festival type, it can be a hotel, an apartment or a pre-pitched tent at the festival’s camping areas.
• Travel: the festival can help our team by purchasing travel tickets or reimbursing the cost of fuel.
• Catering: if there is staff catering, we ask that you arrange meals for our team.
• Furniture: we ask for chairs, tables, etc., for the zone since we cannot bring them with us due to limited space. Sometimes we ask the festival to produce the stands for us if we can’t bring them with us.
• Means of collecting donations: to raise money at our tent, we need to be able to collect cash donations or get a terminal to charge money from credit cards or festival wristbands.
• Promo: we work with the festival to announce that we are coming and to promote the zone to attract visitors.

If you would like to invite Music Saves Ukraine to come to your festival, please get in touch:
uame.org.ua or

See, Hear, Feel Ukraine

Music Saves Ukraine’s most ambitious zone to date is called “See, Hear, Feel Ukraine”. It is more advanced than what we usually can afford to bring to a festival and demonstrates what our team can deliver if granted extra funds. Working on this project gave us experience in scaling our zones up and allowed us to create many materials we now use in our other zones. 

It was presented at EuroFestival in Liverpool as part of the Discover Ukraine zone on May 5-13, 2023. It was an interactive exhibition in a dome with a diameter of 8 meters. At the centre, it had an artificial red viburnum (chervona kalyna) tree, a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, surrounded by live greenery and moss from Ukraine and a sitting area. Around it, you could find 9 unique interactive stands and two big LED screens that told stories about Ukrainian culture, music, history, and resilience. Each stand featured a screen and headphones so that people could immerse themselves in each topic:

• Music Saves Ukraine and “See, Hear, Feel Ukraine” stand at the dome’s entrance about UAME and Music Saves Ukraine, our mission, results, with a link to the donation page and an introduction of what awaits visitors inside.
• Made in Ukraine, featuring Ukrainian landscapes and architecture, as seen in world-famous ads and music videos shot by international artists in Ukraine.
• See Ukraine, where visitors could discover Ukrainian landscapes and vistas and the destruction brought by the war in VR. Visitors could learn about unique natural sights, architecture, cultural landmarks and how Russia is destroying them.
• World Stage, featuring renowned Ukrainian artists, writers, directors, and fashion designers of different generations and the history of Ukrainian participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Four Notes that United the World tells the story of “Schedryk”, known worldwide as “Carol of the Bells”, its Ukrainian author, creation, release, significance and worldwide presence.
• “Oi U Luzi Chervona Kalyna” tells about the song which has accompanied the Ukrainian fight for freedom since the 17th century and the role it has played throughout Ukrainian history.
• Hear Ukraine, where people could listen to Ukrainian poetry read to them in Ukrainian by prominent Ukrainians and read stories about renowned Ukrainian writers.
• Culture of Brave explains how the cultural sector and Ukrainian artists respond to the invasion, become volunteers, fundraise at home, reflect on the war in their art, and raise awareness about what’s happening in Ukraine.
• Colour for Ukraine, where people could use markers to colour titles of most internationally known Ukrainian songs and Ukrainian ornaments.
• Ukrainian memes and how they help Ukrainians stay resilient and fight propaganda.

The zone proved to be very popular and attracted more than 37,000 visitors, who queued up at all times throughout 8 days. Among the guests were prominent Ukrainian artists and celebrities, Eurovision participants, the Ukrainian Minister of Culture, UK politicians, and representatives of cultural institutions. The team for this project included almost 30 people: the Music Saves Ukraine team, florists and decorators who looked after the greenery, technical personnel who built the zone, and designers who helped create the stands.