Folkemødet Democracy Festival
Folkemødet takes place every year and is the biggest political event in Denmark, bringing 60.000+ people to the island of Bornholm in 2023. Folkemødet is a democracy festival that seeks to diminish distance and enhance trust between citizens and decision-makers. Encouraging dialogue and cooperation between citizens, businesses, NGO’s, IGO’s, and politicians. This three-day festival is the highlight of the Danish political calendar. Their goal is to grasp the momentum after the EP24 elections. Folkemødet will take place one week after the elections. After the pan-European campaign where we hopefully gained several more seats in the EP, this is the perfect moment to join Folkemødet with our own tent and host our own debates. This will help to give us visibility and legitimacy, and to attract new members!
Aim & process
⚡️ Aim: We set three goals for this year’s Folkemødet in advance: 1) increase Volt’s visibility in Denmark; 2) strengthen cooperation with organizations, companies, parties and to expand our network; 3) gain new members and supporters.
👯♀️ Target group: The festival is oriented towards democracy and politics and thus each of the
approximately 100,000 politically interested visitors who attended the festival over the three days
are the target group. That’s a lot of people!
✔ KPIs: Volt Denmark is a small team, thus there was a focus on impactful and easy to measure KIPs: 1) New memberships and enquiries during and after Folkemødet; 2) social media followers (incl. our newsletter); 3) Number of visitors to individual debates; 4) New network contacts after Folkemødet.
The events line-up:
Thursday 12/6
11:00 – 11:40 Democracy Under Pressure
14:00 – 14:40 Security in a Changing World in cooperation with: Orange Cyberdefence.
17:30 – 18:10 Deeper Together? The Future of EU Integration
Friday 13/6
11:00 – 11:40 Green Transition: Innovation, Regulation, or System Change? in cooperation with: Technical University of Denmark; Den Grønne Ungdomsbevægelse; ESG365; Dyrenes Alliance.
14:00 – 14:40 The Future European Identity
16:00 – 16:40 Det nye verdensbillede omkring Østersøen / The new situation in the Baltic Sea. With representatives from: Ministry of Resilience and Preparedness, The US Embassy
Saturday 14/6
11:00 – 11:40 Equality in Europe in cooperation with Radikale Venstre Bornholm SAGA
14:00 – 14:40 Fighting Crime Across Borders
16:00 – 16:40 European Cities
Evaluation and learnings
📌 The event
Folkemødet is THE event in Denmark for getting in touch with other politically interested people, organizations, companies and parties. It definitely makes sense to participate in this event. Since there are many opportunities to actively participate in Folkemødet, we will analyse these various possibilities.
✔️ The planning
An event like this, involving travel and accommodation, must be planned and initiated at an early stage. Responsibilities and support from members must be secured.
🤝 The team
Due to the long event days and the number of events, a larger team is required. We would like to thank the other Volt chapters once again for their support and visit, especially Germany. You were a great help and were indispensable at the booth!
➡️ The programme
Our debates and events were well attended, and our project management established some excellent collaborations. In future, we need to publicize and promote our programme more in advance via social media and our website.
A personal impression
It’s like a Disneyland fairground for politically and socially active people. It takes place for a week each summer on the Island of Bornholm! How else can I explain Folkemødet to members of Volt who come from other countries? Of course, the outreach people in Volt (a pan European political
party with a small group in Denmark) see the potential to reach the 100 000 Danish participants, who might be interested in Volt. Whereas those same 100 000 participants might see the potential in reaching Volt members to be support their interest… whatever that might be.
This is maybe the key element of Folkemødet, because it is not about providers and consumers or givers and takers, but more about what we can do together. What is our common interest around which we can join efforts?
So my friend Christian, who is a natural networker arranged for a representative from Dyrenes Alliance to join a Volt panel discussion about the green transition in the Volt tent and in exchange, he offered me to take part in an activity at Dyrenes Alliance stand. “Just show up at 10 o’clock, you’re almost vegetarian anyway aren’t you, Lars will take care of everything” 10 o’clock is not high profile Folkemødet time, so I was reassured. Lars was good. He was dressed in a chef’s outfit and I soon was too. We cooked meat free burgers on a BarBQ and discussed related topics, effects of EU farming subsidies, treatment conditions of cattle, climate impact of beef, what was in the patties – Danish chickpeas! The high point was the tasting and serving or burgers to the audience. They tasted good. They tasted so good that I could forget that I am somewhat allergic to chickpeas and would suffer later…
Next year I want to do more with Lars and Dyrenes Alliance, despite the chickpea allergy. Lars is a natural pubic communicator and there is so much more common interest than I could have imagined with Volt policies. Not only in regards to innovation, but also EU reform, and climate mitigation. This is the key to success at Folkemødet. Connect, learn, grow, strengthen, repeat. Roll on 2026!