Steelfest Open Air Festival recently announced the full line-up for the 2024 edition and it occurred to me that instead of writing about the bands, why not put together a little travel guide for us foreigners travelling to Finland? Travellers from abroad, we have all the information you need right here.
Of course, I am not a Finn and have no in-depth knowledge of the country, 4-5 days a year in Helsinki and Hyvinkää only allows me to make small suggestions. If any Finn happens to read this and wants to expand on the tips, cultural insights, do’s & do nots; please feel free to drop a private message on any of my social media accounts.
Chances are you still don’t know what Steelfest is, so let’s take a quick look at the festival. It takes place in Hyvinkää, a small town with almost 47,000 inhabitants, about 50 km north of Helsinki. Steelfest has been running for some years now, 2024 edition being the 12th Steelfest has been going on for a few years now and 2024 will be the 12th edition. The road to a successful festival has not been an easy one, with debts over the years or the never-ending boycott, culminating with a business insider who gave Steelfest a mafia-like ultimatum, proceeding to use far-left online militants or pressuring and most likely blackmailing “safe” bands as a proxy to boycott Steelfest organizers. Much has been written about this, including an interview with the person behind Steelfest who gave a very vivid account of what happened (1)(2)
The word Nazi has undoubtedly been associated with Steelfest, and from my perspective as a participant since 2017, just missing the Covid years, I have never witnessed an extremist act. This I just wrote carefully though, after growing up as a child in a place with a very active nationalist terrorist group (3), as a teenager seeing friends who were active in said group’s youth movement being dragged by the police and tortured, witnessing street fights with countless Molotov cocktails (4), bomb threats, car bombs exploding meters away…
One of my childhood memories is of walking to school every morning as a child and watching the two policemen from the elite team, who were the bodyguards of a local councilman, doing their daily routine of searching under the cars and the sewers for bombs. Only years later and as an adult did I realise that these two policemen knew my timing and waited for me to do the bomb sweep, hoping that if someone was going to detonate a bomb remotely, they might not do it if a child was around. This is the same politically-motivated terrorist group that sold Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel the know-how to build remote-controlled car bombs for half a million dollars, spawning the era of narco-terrorism in Colombia, as portrayed quite well in the Netflix series (5). The councilman I mentioned was a good friend and former colleague of my father’s, who ended up with a death sentence hanging over his head for being in the wrong union and jumping from there to political activism. He had to go into exile. So yeah, is steelfest related to any kind of dangerous political activism as claimed? Absolutely not. This does not mean that individual Steelfest attendees or bands may have far-right political ideas, be far-left supporters, extraterrestrial believers or communists waiting for the unicorn utopia. At the end of the day nobody cares because people go there for the music, to have a good time and to get drunk.
Of course, yes, you will see completely random sieg hails thrown into the air, or some idiot telling you some stupid bullshit. But let me tell you something, idiots are everywhere in this world. I have been to metal shows in Nepal, Brazil and a good number of European countries and there is always that one idiot who is telling you some bullshit. It depends on your attitude how you deal with these situations. Truth is, after several years of experience, Steelfest is about getting together with friends – yes, Finns do that too, despite the clichés and jokes – and having a good time, getting drunk with good music. Last statistic for 2024 edition shows that tickets has been sold so far to more than 40 countries as diverse as Japan, China, South Korea and a bunch of South American countries, so; if Steelfest is a Nazi festival, then the Nazis are improving their diversity quota nowadays. The intensity of the South American fans is also worth mentioning. Over the years at Steelfest I have met a number of people from Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile and other countries where the economic situation and devalued money makes travelling to a country like Finland incredibly costly. Most of these guys spend one or even two years saving the money to attend Steelfest and this is pure dedication to the underground wolves. There are 666% chances they will be at the front row on almost every single show.
Lets explore the options when organising your trip to Steelfest from abroad, where to stay, how to get around, where to eat, what visit, etc. Let’s start thinking about accommodation, there are a few options that present a number of requirements for train commuting, we’ll get to those later.
ACCOMMODATION.
As we said, Hyvinkää is a small place, therefore hotel rooms are very limited and most likely booked out a year in advance. So if you are planning to attend in future years, it would be wise to ask at the reception. The festival offers the possibility of school accommodation for those on a budget who want to be close to the festival grounds. I personally have never stayed there and have no idea how the system is set up, so if anyone is willing to step in and share the experience I will be all ears.
As we said, Hyvinkää is a small place, therefore hotel rooms are very limited and most likely booked out a year in advance. So if you are planning to attend in future years, it would be wise to ask at the reception. The festival offers the possibility of school accommodation for those on a budget who want to be close to the festival grounds. I personally have never stayed there and have no idea how the system is set up, so if anyone is willing to step in and share the experience I will be all ears.
The third option for Hyvinkää is AirBnB, which I suspect will be popping up just for the festival days. Curious thing about a small festival that keeps growing slowly but steadily, they work as an economic dinamiser for the host places. If this event took place in a capital city it would be a drop in the ocean, but in a moderately sized place like Hyvinkää it works wonders economically and a large part of the inhabitants can benefit from it. I myself come from an even smaller place than Hyvinkää, a small town of 16,000 inhabitants. We hosted a huge metal festival in 2005 and 2006 and half of the town worked for it directly and the other half indirectly: supermarkets were empty, bars emptied their beer stock, restaurants were full etc. Watching Manowar with my parents from their balcony was priceless.
In Hyvinkää there are a lot of families who open their spare rooms or even the living rooms for the visitors. I used this option once and I have a little anecdote about it: I travelled on a very early flight so I didnt get any of my beauty sleep. if any of you suffers from sleep deprivation for any prolonged period, you will relate, your brain simply stops working. On the train to Hyvinkää I met a Brit who had an interesting conversation and while we were chatting I got off the train and left my luggage on it. This luggage was a wedding present, so imagine the reaction when I told my wife that I had left it on the train. My hosts on AirBnB were nothing but helpful and thanks to them I managed to recover the suitcase 4 years later, but thats another silly tale. As I had nothing to wear for the weekend, I spent an insane amount of money on merch. A perfect example of the circular economy.
Helsinki, like any other European metropolis, has a wide range of accommodation options if you choose to visit the Finnish capital. Hotels, AirBnB, hostals and even sleeping under bridges are available, although I would not recommend the latter until June or July.
TRANSPORTATION.
The only problem when staying in Helsinki, which I would not even call a problem, is the commute to Hyvinkää. There is a train from Helsinki Central Station every 30 minutes and the ride takes 45 minutes at a cost of 8.90 euros. Simple arithmetic of a 3-day festival with 6 trips results in a total cost of 53.4 euros to add to the travel budget. One problem is the overnight service on Thursday and Friday, with the last train leaving at around midnight and the next train leaving at 4 in the morning.
If you really want to see the last band play to the last note, you are going to be stranded at the outside station for a few hours, and you can trust me, it gets cold, so take some warm clothes for the night. One problem is the overnight service on Thursday and Friday, with the last train leaving at around midnight and the next train leaving at 4 in the morning. If you want to see the last band play until the last note, you will be stranded at the outdoor station for a couple of hours, and you can take my word for it that it gets cold, so take good night clothes. However, there are more night trains on Saturday and this should not be a problem.(6)
If you have booked accommodation in Hyvinkää, you will have to change trains in Tikkurila to get there from the airport. The ride takes about an hour. (6) Buying a train pass at a ticket machine is quite simple, but if you have trouble navigating the system just ask any Finn, they are always keen to help. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to board a train without a valid ticket, you may be fined. But let me tell you something I learnt by experiencing that situation, you are a tourist and in order to be fined you need to have a Finnish national number, which you don’t have so the fine is as good as useless and it is up to your goodwill to pay it.
You can avoid using the ticket machines if you get the VR Matkalla app on your phone. As you can see, there are many ways to be a good tourist.
FOOD, ACTIVITIES & CLOTHING.
Don’t worry, your daily calorie intake will be covered on the festival ground. This year there will be new additions and changes, and the stands will feature award-winning burgers (presumably from the Burger Lovers Festival in Helsinki), traditional Finnish fish and game, BBQ masters and more. If you’re hungry before the festival opens its doors in the morning, there’s plenty to choose from around the block.
Now to a very important topic for those of us staying in Helsinki, after a long day of metal, drinks, more drinks and even more drinks, where to eat once we have safely arrived at the capital in the evening at a time when almost everything is closed. There are a few food trucks around the corner from the main train station or McDonald’s. Two of the safe options to drown your alcoholic hunger before a beauty sleep.
If you are a foodie and want to explore Helsinki’s restaurant scene, we have all the information you need right here, thanks to a fellow photographer and friend; Mr Marco Manzi from Marco Manzi Photography(8)
Marco is probably the least ‘Italian’ Italian I have ever met, and I suspect that living in Finland for the last 15 years might cool your blood a bit. Always friendly, always with a nice conversation, Marco enjoys eating like no one else, making him our best guide to exploring Helsinki’s options. By request, the places selected must be affordable for all, which leaves the fine dining scene out of the equation, but if you have a refined palate, just drop me a line for tips, because yours truly, writing this here, was a humble sous chef in a restaurant that won ‘Best Restaurant in Europe’ two years in a row before migrating for good. Even if my golden days are long gone, i still keep track on the emerging places and what the younglings and ambitious chefs present to Bocuse D’or.
Food-wise I have to say I haven’t been going much out to eat on the last few months but if you want Italian you should check Daily dose, in Teurastamo there is Roslund that is a butcher/ restaurant where i often get brisket on Fridays at lunch (they have a fixed lunch menu, almost always the same every week). Onda is OK if you like salads/ vegetarian mostly. Tandoori villa is one really good and reasonably priced Indian restaurant.
Taqueria El Rey or sexico tacos have probably the best tacos in town. Pobrecito or its twin restaurant which name I don’t remember now has pretty good Philipino food. There is a nice Malaysian place downtown, some Indonesian (I believe it’s called Bali- something).
Best pizza overall is in Forza, but that’s a bit pricey, best “average price” pizza is probably at one of the Via Tribunali, but there are plenty of valid pizzerias these days. Finnish food is just boring unless you go for fine dining which is not the case here. What else… cafés… Round has awesome donuts and they happen to be vegan. Meli is a Bosnian bakery with pretty nice stuff. Sävy has good Cuban coffee and I like their banana bread and almond croissants. There is some Spanish and even some Portuguese places but I haven’t tried them.
LOV is a small German cafè with really nice pastries. There are plenty of Korean restaurants with domburi/bibimbap and similar, my favorite of those is probably in Tripla, I think it’s called sizzle station but not 100% sure at the moment. There are plenty of other good cafés and restaurants of course so I could go on for hours depending on what you are looking for e.g. there are few Georgian places, uyghur restaurant in Herttoniemi, gastro cafè kallio has fancy lunches, so more expensive than normal lunch but not as much as dinner prices… there are some ok Thai places, Bangkok 9 in citycenter mall comes to mind… plenty of burger restaurants, not sure nowadays which one stands out cause I make burgers home.. I’ll stop here for now.
Marco Manzi – Food connoisseur
I prefer to spend my mornings resting in bed before heading to Hyvinkää, but if you are the active type of tourist who wants to squeeze the city like a lemon, Helsinki has museums and sightseeing like any other city. As I’m not really a museum type myself, I asked Mr Manzi too.
Well for museums it’s easy: Kiasma, Amos Rex, Ateneum, there might be the occasional exhibition in some small gallery of course but those are the main ones. Day trip to Suomenlinna Island or island tour (same boat stops to multiple ones I think) or hanging out in Seurasaari with squirrels, and birds, there are of course churches and some monuments but overall I would say helsinki is pretty boring. One of the most interesting places is the main library next to the railway station and opposite to the parliament building
Marco Manzi – Tourist guide
One of the reasons I like to stay in Helsinki instead of Hyvinkää is for night photography and walking through a ghostly, empty city. One of the reasons I like to stay in Helsinki instead of Hyvinkää is for night photography and walking through a ghostly, empty city. Nights with dim daylight, so typical of these northern regions turns the city into something else.
Clothing: a delicate topic. May can be a bit complicated in this region. It’s a transitional month between the last breath of a dying winter, the ice saints (9) around the corner and the advent of spring. Climatology is usually very unstable, ranging from really hot with ocassional rainfall here and there.
So sunglasses, sunscreen and ponchos are a must; I usually get my first sunburn of the year at SteelFest. Nights are still cold and can get very cold, so make sure you pack warm clothing. Since it is really annoying to walk around a festival with heavy jackets when the sun is shining and you can be shirtless, the smartest option for me is to pack thermal t-shirts. Of course Steelfest has lockers where you can store your jackets, rucksacks, bought merch etc. So either way, all your bases are covered.
I deliberately used a misleading title for this editorial, Steelfest is not meant to be survived, it is meant to be enjoyed, if this is your first year here, just have fun and enjoy the bands.
Further reading makes you free and prevents brain rot:
(1) – https://www.bardomethodology.com/articles/2021/12/08/steelfest-open-air-interview/
(2) – https://www.bardomethodology.com/articles/2021/12/15/steelfest-open-air-2022/
(3) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_conflict
(4) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale_borroka
(5) – https://www.revistaejercitos.com/en/conflicts/This-is-Pablo-Escobar-and-the-Cali-Cartel/
(8) – https://marcomanzi.fi/ // https://www.facebook.com/MarcoManziPhoto/
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