14 Apr European Blues Challenge 2025 in Split (Croatia). 3 to 5 April
Just coming back after enjoying the fantastic European Blues Challenge in the beautiful city of Split, Croatia. Big thanks to the local organizer, Croatian Blues Forces, and especially Davor Buncic and Sinisa Bizovic plus their whole staff for their amazing work and remarkable organization of the event.
Once again, we had a great opportunity to meet with many friends from all over Europe to enjoy togetherness and, of course, awesome blues music. We experienced two superb semi-finals with 11 high quality acts each night, and the sold-out grand finale with the four first classified acts of each semi-final. We want to acknowledge all musicians for their professional commitment and excellence and congratulate the winners likewise all participating bands witnessing that the Blues is alive and well in Europe!
With the Blues Behind the Scenes Awards we recognized selected European individuals and organizations having worked actively and made significant contributions to advance the Blues in Europe. The EBU awarded Rune Endal (Norway), editor in-chief of Blues News Magazine in the Media category, Detlev Hoegen (Germany), owner of Crosscut Records, in the Production category (unable to attend as he was traveling in USA during the event), and Kjell Inge Brovoll (Norway), the “alma mater” of Blues in Hell Festival, in the Promotion category.
The Blues Market was, once again, the real opportunity to meet and see what’s cooking in the European blues scene, establish new contacts and strengthen earlier and new relationships.
The EBU General Assembly presented EBU activities and new projects, followed by active discussion with many members expressing their viewpoints and contributing interesting and positive ideas.
The digital European Blues Expo photo exhibition with amazing photos from all previous EBCs to reminisce past 12 years of the Challenges was on display at a dedicated venue during the entire EBC weekend.
The six-member professional Jury, representing six different European countries, evaluated the performances of all 22 participating bands and solo/duo acts during the three nights, based on a dedicated scoring and ranking system and reaching the following outcome:
Congratulations go to the EBC 2025 Winners:
ALICE ARMSTRONG BAND (United Kingdom)!
and to WILD FLAME (Poland), second place, and SEE SEE RIDERS (Germany), third place.
The EBC also recognized the best solo/duo act, JANTSO JOKELIN from Finland with an Honorary Award.
The winners are awarded to perform at the following festivals:
EBC AWARDING FESTIVALS
Prize awards for the winners include performing at the following confirmed festivals:
- BB Blues Festival (Portugal), end May
- Sierre Blues Festival (Switzerland), June
- Santa Maria Blues Festival (Azores Islands, Portugal), July
- Notodden Blues Festival (Norway), early August
- Swing Wespelaar (Belgium), mid-August
- Blues in Hell (Norway), end August
- Jimiway Blues Festival (Poland), mid-October
- Blues Alive Festival (Czech Rep), mid-November
- Lucerne Blues Festival (Switzerland), mid-November
Thanks to all EBU active members and all the general audience who filled the event. With the amazing time spent together in Split still in our minds, we are already looking forward to meeting you again at the EBC 2026!
