*By Sotiris Valaris
The artistic director of the Helmos Mountain Festival, Alexis Agrios, explains how the idea for the festival was born, what contributed to its success, what ambitious projects are being prepared for this year and how, beyond being a musical event, it gave a boost to tourism in the region.
The highest point of Achaia, where clouds glide over the slopes of Helmos and snow once gave life to the economy of Kalavryta, a new era is dawning. Not with snowshoes, but with tents, guitars, smoke from outdoor canteens and the sound of people returning to nature. The Helmos Mountain Festival is no longer just a festival. It is also a model for how a mountain destination can be transformed into a multi-thematic attraction for 12 months a year.
The director of the Kalavryta ski resort and artistic director of the festival, Alexis Agrios, who has been living and working on the mountain for five years, remembers the beginning very clearly: “When I started, we were closed by government order, due to Covid. Revenue was zero. The business survived with some government subsidies that we were entitled to, but which later had to be returned. It was like gambling on a losing streak. But we stood our ground.”
Standing and “climatically” lucky. Because, as he recalls, the very next year the picture was completely reversed: “The market opened and we had one of the best tourist years. There was a lot of snow that year, so we had a record number of visitors, a record number of tickets. Our biggest record was 66,000 tickets, and that year we had 95,000 in 3.5 months, which is a 33% increase. We had the best year since the ski resort opened in 1989.”
“We managed to have 100% occupancy during the summer season, from where we had 10%. There is a huge difference for the parts of the wider area, Zarouchla, Peristera, Aegialia, Kleitoria. The surrounding beauty gives additional motivation to the visitor for a walk.”
But this euphoria did not last long. The snow, the main protagonist, was completely absent the following year. “We had a summer Christmas. Instead of 7,000 people a day, we had 200. Then, we had to decide what we could do.”
Somewhere there, in the search for the next day, he met a collaborator who changed his way of thinking. “He said to me: ‘Should we do a festival in the mountains?’ I looked at him and said, ‘Hey, are people going to the mountains and the cold for a festival?’ And he told me that there are thousands of people who would do that.”
Thus began the Helmos Mountain Festival. An idea that was born out of conversation, materialized with the anxiety and fear of the first year and finally exploded like an explosion of enthusiasm on social media, in camping forums, in the mouths of musicians. “We got in touch with the production company Novel Vox. We hit it off immediately. The first festival was organized in just three months. We started contacting each other at the end of March and the festival took place on June 1-3. We expected 4,000 people and 10,000 came. With zero advertising.”
How it spread is almost an urban legend. “Artists announced their summer tours and everyone included Helmos. Nobody knew Helmos, so everyone was looking for it, it became a trend and then went viral.”
“I grew up on this mountain until I was 18”
Behind the festival, however, there was already a personal relationship with the mountain. “I had a ski school in the Kalavryta ski resort and a restaurant in Patmos, which I still have today. For obvious reasons, I sold the school. I have been skiing since I was four years old. I grew up on this mountain until I was 18. I have also trained abroad. I knew what Helmos meant and what its potential was.”
And indeed, with the Helmos Mountain Festival everything changed. “We are the only ski resort in Greece that operates after the winter season. We are creating a new trend. Instead of having Greece as a destination only in the summer, we are creating new destinations in our mountains. All these destinations are coming to life. In fact, the ski resort had a turnover of 1,300,000 euros even before the festival. Now we have managed to exceed 4 million euros.”
And this is not just a number. “We managed to have 100% occupancy during the summer season, from where we had 10%. There is a huge difference for the parts of the wider area, Zarouchla, Peristera, Aegialeia, Kleitoria. The surrounding beauty gives the visitor an additional incentive to go for a walk.”
The early days were full of surprises. “I remember that before Easter we put up 1,000 tickets. I was in Patmos. The company that manages the tickets calls me after 40 minutes and tells me that they are sold out. I didn’t know what to do. I say, ‘put up another 1,000’. In an hour, the same thing happened. Not to mention, in six days 6,000 tickets were sold.”
And all this while “the first year we had rain and mud. You can’t imagine how happy the people were. They didn’t even care. “I remember the last day, at Giannis Charoulis’ last performance. I went up, saw how many people we had and realized all this was happening. It created crazy expectations for us.”
What changed the second year at the Helmos Mountain Festival
The success of the first festival left no room for hesitation. “Last year we were better prepared,” he says. “It happened later in the summer, we had more sun, better conditions. We had positive feedback from everyone. It became an institution in itself, something that the whole region now expects.”
The scale of the event was impressive. “There are 700 people working, from ticket control and sound engineers to setting up the stage and checking the tents. We have a food plaza with 14 canteens with different food, where you can even participate in a truffle hunt, cook it with the chefs and eat it in a barleycorn, for example.” Beyond the music, the activities were numerous. “You can go horseback riding, ziplining, yoga, a chairlift ride. Everything!”
The Helmos Mountain Festival now acts as a guide for a more comprehensive tourism transition: “We are trying to move towards 12-month operation and turn the ski resort into a four-season multi-theme park. The festival showed us the way to do that.”
Challenges remain. “A big problem we are trying to solve is the wait at the restrooms. When you have such a large camping audience, you can’t predict the needs 100% of the time. This year we are doubling the number of toilets and showers. We want people to feel like they are at home.”
At the same time, international music is gradually being integrated. “We are becoming the first provincial festival to open up to foreign music. This year, for example, we will have Dub FX, Nouvelle Vague, Alborosie & Shegen Clan. We are showing what we are thinking of doing in the coming years.”
And what about the garbage? For Alexis Agrios and the entire Helmos Mountain Festival team, ecological awareness is not a slogan, it is an application. “The municipality took care of it from the beginning, we had two garbage trucks permanently on site. We collaborated with the Wastewater Treatment Plant of the Municipality of Kalavryta. The wastewater was collected in tanks and then processed. We collaborated with We4all and other sponsors to recycle paper, plastic and glass. The people themselves collected and recycled their waste.”
And furthermore: “The people from We4all came in after each concert, collected the metal waste, this was recycled, sold and we donated it to a unit for unprotected minors in the Kalavryta area.”
But it’s not just the numbers or the logistics. It’s the audience. “The festival crowd takes care of those who come for the first time, which also shows the education of the campers. Many times, you see people giving others things they have left over. The conditions are more difficult than in the city, so they come closer.”
What changes do we expect this year – The vision for the coming years
This year they will try something even more ambitious. “We will have a music marathon, where people will start on Friday, leave on Monday and enjoy music without interruption. We will give people the opportunity to climb to the top of Helmos, at 2,340 meters. The ascent by cable car takes just seven minutes. The view is breathtaking.”
Even the ticket model was studied. “This year we started announcing tickets early, so that people have time to prepare. We raised the number to 11,000. It will not increase. It is a number at which people will have a good time and the facility will not be burdened. We want this to be the ceiling. We do not want to create something massive. We want to create beautiful experiences. If we see huge demand, we will simply do a second festival.”
The eyes are also looking outside the country. “We are thinking of making a trip to similar festivals abroad, so that we can get better each time.”
The goal is clear: “We want to achieve the following goal: for people not to look at who is singing. For them to come to the festival and know that they will have a great time.”
And perhaps the most honest element of this story is found in what Alexis Agrios said at the beginning: “The first thing we did was to visualize it. Then, to design it. Which part of the facilities we will use, but also what will be different for people to see from us. We are a mountain festival of outdoor activities, recreation and music. We didn’t want them to say “just a music festival.” We wanted to do it and we didn’t care if we got in. That was the spirit of the production company. The common goal was to entertain people. And in the end, everything turned out better than we expected.”
Source: lifo.gr
