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Impulse Festival 2026 brings music back to the whole city: ABOP, record fair, Komikaze, and the finale with Valovi and Željezne pilule

From April 17 to 25, 2026, Rijeka will once again live to the rhythm of the Impulse Festival, an event that over more than a decade has built a recognizable place on the domestic independent cultural map. The thirteenth edition brings a multi-day program spread across several city locations, confirming the formula through which this festival won over its audience: music is not reduced only to the concert stage, but spreads through clubs, galleries, public spaces, and meetings between the audience and different forms of urban culture. In Rijeka’s spring calendar, this means that during two festival weekends and the working week, concerts, vinyl gatherings, and visual programs that complement one another will alternate. For visitors coming from other cities, especially for programs in different parts of Rijeka, it will also be important to check accommodation in Rijeka in time, especially on the days when the festival enters its finale.

A festival that has been expanding the concept of the concert program for years

Impulse Festival today is not just another series of concerts in April. The organizers describe it as a multi-day boutique festival dedicated to the promotion of urban culture, with a special emphasis on music, and that definition explains well why the program year after year crosses the boundaries of the classic club offer. Since its first edition in 2014, the festival has brought a series of domestic, regional, and international names through Rijeka, along with parallel content that deals with music as a social and cultural phenomenon, and not only as entertainment. In that sense, the slogan “Music is everywhere” is not a marketing gimmick, but a program logic that is clearly visible in this year’s schedule of events as well. The thirteenth edition is jointly organized by Distune Promotion and the Student Cultural Center of the University of Rijeka, and the festival is partially co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Rijeka, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, and the Kultura nova Foundation. In this way, Impulse also institutionally confirms the status of an event that does not rely only on the enthusiasm of the independent scene, but also on the recognized public value of such a program.

For a city like Rijeka, whose identity has for decades strongly leaned on alternative and club culture, such a festival has a broader meaning than the performance calendar itself. It connects different generations of audiences, opens space for new performers, and reminds us that the urban music scene survives not only on big names, but also on the continuous creation of meeting places. That is why it is not insignificant that the program is once again taking place at several locations, from Pogon and Exportdrvo to the SKC Gallery and The Rock Pub, because it is precisely this dispersal that turns the festival into a city event. It does not “happen” only in one hall, but is inscribed into the everyday life of Rijeka and its cultural geography. For visitors who want to catch more festival slots, in practice this also means planning movement around the city, as well as a timely search for accommodation near the event venues.

ABOP at Pogon as the peak of the festival Friday

One of the most anticipated moments of this year’s edition is certainly the performance by ABOP, scheduled for Friday, April 24 at Pogon. It is a band that over the years has built the status of one of the most recognizable domestic live electronic projects, and the audience follows it not only because of its club energy, but also because of the impression that on stage it combines the concert energy of a band and the driving force of an electronic set. In the announcement of the Rijeka performance, the organizers point out that ABOP is coming to present the album “Masters of Afters”, along with a selection of older songs that have already become a trademark of their repertoire. It is precisely that combination of new material and proven concert strengths that promises an evening that could be among the highlights of the entire festival.

It is important to emphasize that ABOP is returning to Rijeka not only as a known name, but also at a moment of increased visibility of the new album. “Masters of Afters” has already received a strong response in the domestic music space, and several media and critical reviews have highlighted it as one of the more important domestic releases of the previous year. This gives additional weight to the context of the Rijeka performance: it is not just another guest appearance by an established band, but a concert arriving at a moment when the new material has a fresh and strong echo in public. The audience coming to the festival Friday can therefore expect more than a standard club set, namely a performance that combines strong electronics, rhythmic precision, visual identity, and the energy for which ABOP has long been recognized. For the part of the audience planning to stay in the city until the festival finale, a practical solution can also be an earlier booked accommodation for visitors in Rijeka, especially because of the dense schedule of events on the final weekend.

Along with the musical dimension itself, ABOP’s performance also clearly shows one of the more important characteristics of the Impulse Festival. The organizers do not choose performers only by current popularity, but by whether they can embody with their performance the idea of the festival as a meeting place of different urban sensibilities. In that sense, ABOP is a logical choice: the band simultaneously belongs to club, rock, and electronic audiences, and their concert crosses the boundaries of genre boxes without difficulty. That is precisely why the festival Friday is not just a program item, but an event that sums up what Impulse wants to be in Rijeka: a space of high intensity, openness, and shared experience.

The record fair at Exportdrvo remains one of the festival’s most recognizable highlights

Saturday, April 18, is reserved for the traditional record fair at Exportdrvo, an event that has long outgrown the framework of ordinary vinyl sales. This year’s jubilee 25th edition takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the organizers announce it as a place of buying, exchanging, bargaining, collector meetings, and relaxed socializing among people who do not reduce music to algorithmic recommendations and digital streaming. That is precisely where the broader importance of the fair lies: it is not merely a retro-romantic addition to the festival program, but a living confirmation that physical sound carriers still have a social and cultural function. For part of the audience, coming to the fair means a search for rare editions; for others, browsing affordable titles; and for still others, simply a few hours spent in an atmosphere in which music once again becomes a subject of conversation, exchange, and discovery.

It is especially important that admission to the fair is free, which additionally opens space to a broader audience, including those who may not be regular concertgoers but are interested in music culture. In a city accustomed to a strong musical memory and collecting scene, such a program has almost documentary value: it preserves the continuity of listening, collecting, and talking about music at a time when cultural consumption is increasingly taking place quickly and in fragments. During the fair, Exportdrvo therefore turns into a place where traders, vinyl lovers, the curious, and those just entering the world of analog music culture meet at the same time.

But this year the fair is not important only because of the records. It is also a platform for an accompanying artistic program, which further confirms the idea that Impulse brings together different media and audiences. In practice, this means that Saturday at Exportdrvo will be a kind of daytime entry into the broader festival week: a more relaxed format, open to walking, lingering, conversation, and the accidental discovery of something new. It is precisely in such programs that Impulse often shows the most character, because they best show that the festival does not build its identity only on “big nights”, but also on events that create atmosphere and long-term audience loyalty.

Komikaze enters the festival focus more strongly for the first time

Among the more important novelties of the thirteenth edition is the more prominent artistic segment brought by the Komikaze network, one of the most recognizable names on the independent comics scene in the region. As part of the record fair on April 18, the Exquisite Corpse workshop will be held from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., conceived as a joint drawing format that puts collaboration, spontaneity, and the play of collective imagination in the foreground. Such a workshop fits well into the spirit of the festival because it does not treat the audience only as an observer, but also as an active participant in the cultural event. In this way, Impulse moves even further away from the one-dimensional model of a festival that offers only ready-made content from the stage, and opens space for participation.

Komikaze will also present itself in Rijeka with the exhibition “XXL Komikaze / Comic Album Covers”, opening at the SKC Gallery on Sunday, April 19 at 7 p.m. and remaining available until April 25. According to available announcements, the exhibition focuses on enlarged covers of 24 Komikaze albums, turning a format otherwise tied to a shelf, archive, or reader’s hand into a large-format gallery visual. In this way, comics and publishing are presented not only as content for reading, but also as a visual culture that deserves gallery space. According to published information, the exhibition will be open every day from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and admission is free.

The inclusion of Komikaze in the festival framework is important for several reasons. First, it broadens the concept of urban culture that Impulse has been invoking for years, giving it more concrete and ambitious content. Then, the festival thus shows that it does not want to keep the audience only within the music program, but to offer it contact with other independent scenes that share a similar ethos of creating outside dominant market patterns. Finally, such a move further strengthens the festival’s profile as a meeting place of different artistic practices. For a city that builds its cultural recognizability also through independent formats, this is more than an incidental addition to the program; it is a signal that the Rijeka scene continues to develop through the interconnection of music, visual art, and independent production.

The final evening at The Rock Pub combines Rijeka indie and Zagreb punk

The festival finale on Saturday, April 25, moves to The Rock Pub, where Rijeka’s Valovi and Zagreb’s Željezne pilule will perform. That combination of a local band and guests from Zagreb clearly suggests what kind of final evening Impulse wanted to shape: a concert that will not play it safe with the card of a big headliner, but will offer the living, young, and raw energy of the guitar scene. In this program, Valovi carry additional local weight because they are a band formed in Rijeka, and their festival performance is also connected with the promotion of the new album “Barbados”, which according to available information is released on April 20 for Menart. This also gives their concert the dimension of a city promotion, that is, a performance arriving at a sensitive and important moment for the band itself.

Željezne pilule, on the other hand, are described in the announcements as young, fired-up, and rebellious punk girls from Zagreb, and that description clearly suggests what kind of tonality is expected from the final evening. Instead of a ceremonial closing, the audience can expect a concert that turns the festival finale into another strong outburst of club energy. Such a choice of performers also shows that Impulse remains faithful to the independent logic of the program: the ending is not reserved only for established and long-confirmed names, but also for performers who bring freshness, immediacy, and the potential for further growth. It is precisely such concerts that are often the most important for the audience that follows the festival year after year, because they offer the feeling that not only a “safe” program is being reproduced before them, but that space is also opening for what is yet to come.

For visitors planning to combine the final concert with a full-day stay in the city, especially if along with the music they also want to visit other content around Rijeka, it is useful to look at accommodation offers in Rijeka in time. The final festival weekend is often precisely the part of the program when the city also receives an audience from outside, that is, those who want to experience the festival as a short cultural stay, and not only as an individual night out.

What Impulse 2026 says about Rijeka and its cultural scene

This year’s program confirms that the Impulse Festival still manages to maintain a balance between recognizability and risk. On the one hand, it offers proven formats that the audience already recognizes, such as the record fair or a strong concert weekend. On the other hand, it expands space for artistic and interdisciplinary content, so Komikaze’s entry into focus is not a decorative addition, but a real shift in the structure of the program. Such development is important also because it speaks of the festival’s cultural maturity: after more than a decade of existence, it does not remain trapped in the same pattern, but changes emphases, seeks new intersections of scenes, and tests how widely it can open its own identity while remaining recognizable.

For Rijeka, that means something else as well. At a time when cultural programs are often viewed through the number of visitors and immediate media reach, Impulse still reminds us of the importance of continuity. Not every festival value lies in spectacle; much of it is also in a certain city retaining places, audiences, and events that year after year nurture the habit of going to concerts, exhibitions, workshops, and meetings outside the dominant mainstream. That is precisely why the thirteenth edition should also be read as a cultural indicator of the state of the scene: there is an audience, infrastructure, and organizational will to continue building in Rijeka a space for urban culture that is not one-off, but lasting.

In that sense, Impulse 2026 is not important only because of ABOP, the record fair, Komikaze, Valovi, or Željezne pilule individually. It is important because it connects all those elements into a story about a city that still wants its music, art, and independent production to be visible, accessible, and alive. From April 17 to 25, Rijeka thus once again gets a festival that does not want only to entertain the audience, but also to include it, direct it, and remind it that the cultural scene survives precisely where there is a real meeting of people, spaces, and ideas.

Sources:
- Visit Rijeka – official announcement with festival dates, record fair program, final evening, and information about Komikaze (link)
- Distune Promotion – official description of the Impulse Festival program, festival concept, slogan, and organizational framework (link)
- Distune Promotion – official announcement of ABOP’s performance at Pogon on April 24 and presentation of the album “Masters of Afters” (link)
- Distune Promotion – official announcement of the Komikaze program, the Exquisite Corpse workshop, and the exhibition at the SKC Gallery (link)
- MojaRijeka – calendar announcement of the exhibition “XXL Komikaze / Comic Album Covers” with times and description of the display (link)
- SKC University of Rijeka – confirmation of the organizers and co-financing of the festival (link)
- CoreEvent – official ticket sales and the date of the final concert by Valovi and Željezne pilule at The Rock Pub on April 25 at 9 p.m. (link)
- Distune Promotion – announcement of the band Valovi and information that the album “Barbados” is released on April 20, 2026, with the Rijeka promotion as part of the festival (link)