The Arctic Arts Festival is a festival based in Harstad, Norway. It was first held in 1965, and consists of music, theatre and art performances. The festival lasts one week and is held in June. The Arctic Arts Festival is active throughout the year and has arranged annual festivals in Harstad since 1965. From 1995 to 2015 the festival was acknowledged as a festival of national importance, called "knutepunktfestival", and received funding through the government budget. The Arctic Arts Festival is made possible through various sources of funding from the Norwegian state, Finnmark, Troms and Nordland regional councils, as well as the local Harstad council. In February 2016 the festival launched a new arts and culture magazine called HØTT which will be released twice a year. The Arctic Arts Festival has great faith in arts from the north! The festival is an Arctic event with ambitions of becoming the world's most important arts festival for the entireArctic region. Together with strong profiles of local arts and culture, the festival sets in motion fresh creative projects. The festival encourage collaborations which bring together different northern regions, and wish to take a leading role as a facilitator of network building and as an arena for Arctic arts and culture. The Arctic Arts Festival will foreground new constellations, partnerships and groundbreaking independent productions. The Arctic Arts Festival administers arts funding which amounts to awards of in total, 1,3 million kroner annually. The aim is to stimulate local arts and culture, and to fund diverse projects in the fields of theatre, music and visual arts. Through our Young Artists Stipend and Open Call funding we allocate support for creative theatrical projects which challenge the boundaries of artistic expression through new collaborations. We want to provide the opportunity for artists to think big, push the boundaries and take chances! The Arctic Arts Festival arranges annually NUK during the festival week.
