The EBBA Press Conference took place this morning in Palanga where 4BR posed a few questions to EBBA President Ulf Rosenberg.

Unfortunately 4BR was the only media representative there — which perhaps tells you something in itself.

Excellent progress

He confirmed that "excellent progress" is being made with Stavanger in hosting the event at its impressive concert hall in 2025. The Conductors Competition will be held there with the European Youth Championships once again taking place on the Sunday.

The contract has been confirmed for Linz in Austria in 2026, where the Soloist Competition will take place.

London 2028?

In addition, the EBBA AGM on Sunday will hopefully vote to confirm the candidature of Montreux in Switzerland for 2027, as well as London in 2028 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Championships. It is likely that the event will be held at the Royal Festival Hall.

There is also interest from Antwerp in Belgium, Utrecht in the Netherlands and Copenhagen in Denmark to host in the following years.

Thanks

Ulf thanked the local organisers and the Mayor of Palanga City Municipality, Saranus Vaitkus for all their work and investment in bringing the event to Lithuania.

He acknowledged that there had been challenges, but underlined his belief that it was essential for EBBA "to spread the gospel" about brass banding to new nations in Europe.

"The support of the local authority has been very good," he said.

He also stated that EBBA was committed to seeking new horizons as well as helping in the future development of countries such as Denmark and Austria that have small but well established banding movements.

No direct help to bands

The 'franchise model' currently employed by EBBA alongside host nations works he said, pointing to the fact that Stavanger has just attracted 50,000 Euros of investment to help run their event in 2025.

However, he reiterated that he "cannot promise" that this will lead to any change in the current financial model that would see EBBA directly helping bands with the expense of attending the European Championships event.

"This is up to local federations to support representative bands," he said, although he did acknowledge that this might be more difficult for bands in different countries.

"It is not for EBBA to give money to support bands in this way," he said. "We will always look to seek sponsorship (when asked about levels and make up of prizes) and support — and we have two new sponsors on board this year.

We would welcome assistance and advice to see what can be done in the future and we are open to this, but at present I cannot promise it."

Ulf also pointed out that one of the main obstacles in being able to get funding from European-wide cultural organisations is that they now target new initiatives rather than well established cultural events approaching their 50th anniversary.