The festival named after the outstanding prose writer of the 20th century Andrey Platonov has been held in the writer's homeland since 2011. The special "Platonov programme" includes projects created on the basis of the works of Andrey Platonov or that correspond with his spirit and era.
The programme of the Platonov Arts Festival traditionally consists of the following directions "Theatre", "Music", "Exhibitions" and "Literature" and is a collection of the brightest phenomena and names of modern Russian and world culture.
In 2020 and 2021 the audience was presented with the "Voronezh Case" programme: we invited theatre fans, artistic directors, programme directors and curators of Russian and international festivals to get acquainted with the most striking Voronezh performances of the last two seasons. (This needs to be fixed)
Last year, the festival presented the "Platonov-2021" cycle of theatre performance events for the first time.
Founder and artistic director of the Platonov Arts Festival - Mikhail Bychkov, theatre director, founder and artistic director of the Voronezh Chamber Theatre; Member of the Council for Culture and Art under the President of the Russian Federation, Advisor for Culture to the Governor of the Voronezh Region.
The festival was created with the support of Alexey Gordeev, Governor of the Voronezh Region in 2009-2017.
Since its foundation the Platonov Festival has been following its main goal: to open the great world of art to Voronezh and to open Voronezh to the world.
Through the course of its 11-year history the forum has become one of the largest and most meaningful arts festivals in Russia. Only in 2019 more than 80,000 spectators from different cities and countries visited the festival events. And the number of spectators for all the years of the Platonov Festival exceeds half a million.
The results of a study by Public Opinion Institute "Qualitas" in 2020 showed that 63% of Voronezh residents consider the Platonov Festival the pride of the Voronezh region. The festival occupies a leading position in tourist ratings. The federal media repeatedly calls the Platonov Festival one of the most significant Russian cultural forums. It also gives Voronezh the title of the Cultural Capital of Russia in June.
The price of a ticket for a fee-based event of the festival starts from 500 rubles.
More than 50% of forum guests are visitors to events with free entry: the Book Fair, open rehearsals, workshops, meet-the-artist events.
The majority of the festival audience consist of teenagers and adults. Some events might also be of interest to children – a bright and large-scale theatre parade, which takes place on the central streets of Voronezh, the World Music in the White Well, the performance of musicians in the garden of the Ramon Palace. The Book Fair annually features 10 independent children's publishing houses and three days of free educational workshops for children.