SAMPO Festival

SAMPO Festival is an international festival for puppet theatre and visual theatre, organized annually in August at the heart of the Finnish capital Helsinki. In 2020, due to the covid-19 pandemic, the event was organized as SAMPO XX with domestic performers, but international vibes!

This exceptional puppet theatre festival for exceptional times entailed Finnish performances for adults and children, outdoor performances and exhibitions by Finnish puppeteers.

In 2021, we aim to invite a wide repertoire of high quality puppetry from all over Europe to perform in Helsinki in the end of August. Groups that we wanted to have on our festival in 2020, will be among them. These entail puppeteers from France, Britain, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Israel. Finnish top notch performances will make our festival worth a visit too!

SAMPO festival offers memorable, touching and entertaining performances for children and adults, showcases artists from across the field, different styles of puppetry and visual theatre, and crosses borders between different fields of art. In addition to performances, the program may also feature films, workshops, outdoor performances, discussions and diverse artist meetings.

The festival is organized by Puppet Theatre Sampo. Performances also take place at other venues nearby. Collaborators of SAMPO Festival are Helsinki City, Theatre Avoimet Ovet and other cultural establishments.