News
Malta – January 25th, 2022: The Festival Series Season 2022 is now set to begin in Tallinn, Estonia from June 27th – July 3rd, 2022, instead of Bratislava in March. The same games, the same concept and the same level of excitement and fun is guaranteed, just with a slight delay. The decision comes following careful monitoring of […]
The Festival in Bratislava postponed: Due to Covid we have to postpone the Festival in Bratislava until Autumn. Our first event this year will be The Festival in Tallinn in June. We will return to the Banco Casino in the heart of the capital of Slovakia and run the next edition of The Festival Series […]
After a fantastic week of casino games, poker, sports betting and enjoying the city of Bratislava, we’re currently in the early planning phases for our next stop. To shorten the waiting period, we want to offer two awesome online tournaments in cooperation with Coolbet and Guts, two of our partners. The Festival Afterparty on Coolbet […]
The inaugural Festival Series event in Bratislava was an awesome achievement with one week packed with poker tournaments, blackjack and roulette tournaments, competitive sports betting and buzzing action in the Banco Casino 24/7. Here’s a short recap of our first Festival Event in case you missed anything: €300k Main Event with 621 runners Let’s take […]
Our coverage of the Main Event last night was particularly difficult towards the end as an ever-so-slightly inebriated Franke von Zweigbergk kept pestering us with some nonsense about the Sportsbook events. Once Martin Mauthner had taken it down though, we chased Franke down and discovered that he’d somehow won not just the freeroll, but all […]
Starting September 13th, we’re running The Festival Series merch giveaway for all users that download our app and fill out their profile inside the app. We are giving away five merch bundles for The Festival Series, each consisting in one cap and one deck of cards. To enter you must download the app and create […]
Charming as Andrea Compiano, Account Manager Casino & Customised Playing Cards for Dal Negro, is on a Zoom chat, my eyes keep straying to the mind-boggling selection of board games and other Dal Negro products neatly arranged on shelves behind him. He’s talking to me from his office, and judging by Compiano’s cheerful demeanour, as […]
Our inaugural stop for The Festival Series, the Festival in Bratislava is less than 50 days away and this means it’s high time to take a closer look at the schedule for the entire week. We expect an action-packed week in the Banco Casino in Bratislava with a total number of 21 different events, including […]
Multiple poker news outlets will be accompanying The Festival Series throughout the multiple stops in Europe. One of those outlets the Finnish poker news & community portal Pokerisivut. Pokerisivut is one of the largest poker communities in northern Europe with thousands of members. The portal has been online for over a decade and is the […]
For live poker events there is simple unwritten rule: No international poker tournament can be complete without PokerNews reporting on it. The online poker news outlet is on the scene for almost 20 years now and of course PokerNews will pay our Festival Series in Bratislava a visit. Be it World Series of Poker, European […]
Welcome to the newest addition to The Festival family – Guts Poker! Jostein Grødum, head of poker at Guts, filled me in on what players can expect from the partnership. Strong partnership with other live events “Guts is a gaming brand offering more than poker – we have casino and sports book as well – […]
A real money social poker experience? Why does that sound familiar? The first regulated real money poker app We talked to Manuel Lopes at Pokio, a European-based real money poker app about their brand new partnership with The Festival Series. In Lopes’ own words: “There are a lot of fantastic apps in the market where […]
Good old Covid may have pushed back The Festival in Tallinn to 2022, but 2021 is far from a write-off – the inaugural Festival in Bratislava is very much on this September 20-26, and there are few better cities to provide a backdrop to the return of live events in Europe. Our venue for the […]
Today’s interview subject: Sami Pulliainen, poker player and representative for Finnish gambling community Uhmapelaajat. Despite the modesty, Sami actually has quite a lot to say about himself and the organisation he’s representing. What is Uhmapelaajat? “It’s sort of like a gambling society,” he goes on. “We give tips, we bet together and stuff, we give […]
Malta – April 27, 2021: The Festival Series is now set to begin in Bratislava, Slovakia from September 20-26, 2021, instead of Tallinn in June. The same level of excitement and fun is guaranteed, just with a slight delay (and more build-up). The decision comes following careful monitoring of the COVID situation across Europe, which […]
The Festival Series has now got more partners than a Taylor Swift album! Terrible jokes aside, we are delighted to welcome Coolbet Poker, our newest addition to the Festival family. Head of poker Thomas Pasgaard Hviid has given us the lowdown on what to expect from the partnership with The Festival Series. Coolbet: a fairly […]
Antoine Degiorgio, one of the founding members of the Malta Poker Fish Facebook group and enthusiastic cheerleader for poker in Malta, has actually forgotten he agreed to be interviewed today – but he doesn’t seem particularly flustered. “I’m in no rush,” he says easily, “So don’t worry.” This seems to sum him up quite well […]
With less than three months to go before we kick off The Festival in Tallinn, we are delighted to announce our newest partnership with one of the best-loved brands in poker – The Hendon Mob. I spoke to THM’s head of partnerships, Roland Boothby about their plans for joining forces with The Festival Series. “I’ve […]
The Festival Series is delighted to welcome PokerNews on board as an official media partner! I spoke to one-man live reporting powerhouse Jason “JaxonPoker” Glatzer about the PokerNews partnership, and his plans for coverage of The Festival in Tallinn. “PokerNews has been involved in the past in Franke’s ventures including the Cash Game Festival where […]
Keen to get back on the road “What is this anyway?” asks Rod Stirzaker: poker player, industry professional, veteran tournament reporter and long-time associate of yours truly. His extreme suspicion is not merely because I’ve called him up out of the blue after many months of government-mandated lack of live events – we reporters are […]
It is the very crack of lunchtime in London, but it’s already 9pm for Martin Trang, who is speaking to me from his home in the Philippines. He is telling me about how he ended up halfway across the world from his birthplace in Norway. From Sweden to Finland to the Philippines “I grew up […]
“I do streaming on Twitch, I stream online, casino games overall – and I am starting to work together with The Festival and we will have this partnership with CasinoRoom. With their help, we are able to give away big packages to my audience.” So Teukka, one of the most prominent online casino game streamers […]
Entrepreneur, poker player, beer connoisseur. Alleged farmer, loudest man in any given card room, and all-round force of nature. Whatever you choose to call him, there is only one Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk – creator and driving force behind The Festival Series. For Franke, it’s all about the live experience – the party is as […]
Only a week since the official The Festival Series announcement and there has already been an overwhelming response from the community on social channels. Many have already declared this “great news” and are now ensuring they can make it to the event, and still more claiming they “need to start practising” – no doubt a bit rusty after a […]
Mery Blomqvist, recently appointed CMO of Ellmount Group, introduces herself over the phone from her home in Stockholm. “Main reasons I joined Ellmount Group as CMO in Jan this year was due to several facts. CasinoRoom.com was a true pioneer when they launched early in 1999 as one of the first online casinos; plus the […]
Jeff Sarwer sounds as though his last year was quite pleasant overall, if a little quiet. “Oh, you know, just keeping things simple, a little bit of online chess and poker, nothing much,” is his response to my now-standard ‘how’s lockdown treating you?’ opener. “Not much live or anything.” I remind him that no-one’s played […]
We are delighted this week to welcome Olybet to The Festival family as an online partner. We spoke to Olybet’s head of poker Herli Olop about working with us to deliver live events after what’s been an exceptionally grim year for the bricks-and-mortar industry. “As you know, the Olympic Entertainment Group is both land-based and […]
We caught up with the two-time bracelet winner, Jesper “Kipster” Hougaard, who is currently escaping European lockdown in Dubai. He is excited to hear about The Festival. “I have been told that the organizers will be setting up some big PLO cash games in Tallinn, so in that case I am very likely to come […]
Juha Helppi, on the phone at home in Finland, is summing up his plague year in characteristically understated style. After two decades of A-list prominence on the international tournament circuit, it took a global pandemic to push Helppi back to playing online, and his results have been impressive. He racked up 13 cashes in last […]
The Ålandic gaming company has a long history of involvement in Europe’s liveliest and most player-focused poker and gaming tournaments, and is excited about partnering with The Festival to bring their players the best live event experience – especially after a long period of enforced online-only activity has left everyone chomping at the bit to […]
Malta / Tallinn – February 19, 2021: Today, Acroud is announcing their launch of an innovative kind of live gambling event – The Festival Series. A weeklong player meetup and celebration which combines the best live poker, casino and sports events all in one scene. The Festival will make several stops across various cities around […]
