The Music of Tomorrow at Lasciati Fiorire

From August 28 to 30, Lasciati Fiorire returns to the Lumen — the festival organized by Fiore sul Vulcano, which this year celebrates its fifth official edition. Taking the stage will be Queen of Saba, Godblesscomputers, Masamasa, Gaia Banfi, Gioia Lucia, Iako, Satantango, Irossa, Amore Audio, Brucherò nei pascoli and Angry.Gu, together with the emerging projects picked for the Bloom Stage.

One look at the lineup makes something clear right away: Lasciati Fiorire — as anyone who knows the festival will tell you — doesn’t try to chase the artists of the moment. Just the opposite. For a few years now, Fiore sul Vulcano has chosen instead to build a festival that bets on discovery, on scouting, and on the names that only a few people may know today but who could be among the leading voices of Italian music tomorrow.

That’s exactly where our chat with Matteo Ravazzi, president of the Fiore sul Vulcano association, begins. “No one ever sat down at a table and said: let’s make a festival.” That’s the first thing he tells us, and it’s probably also the best way to explain how Lasciati Fiorire came to be.

The festival’s story, in fact, doesn’t follow a straight line. It all started in 2017 as the party of a collective of musicians. At first it was a single day, conceived above all for the Florentine scene. Then, year after year, the project grew along with the people running it. The collective became an association, the festival stretched to three days, and its gaze widened more and more toward the national independent scene.

The fifth official edition, set for August 28–30 at the Lumen, is almost the natural endpoint of that journey. An “almost” that matters, because listening to Ravazzi it becomes clear that Lasciati Fiorire wasn’t born with a fixed format. Just as it grew one piece at a time, following the people and the music it wanted to bring to Florence, the festival keeps claiming the freedom to transform itself in the future too.

The bet that changed Lasciati Fiorire

In recent years Fiore sul Vulcano made a deliberate choice: to stop building the festival around the best-known names of the local scene and start betting on emerging artists from all over Italy. A decision that, inevitably, also had an impact on the audience.

“When we made that switch, going from the better-known local artists to emerging names from the national scene, in 2024 we saw a drop in attendance,” Ravazzi says. Over time, though, something different happened. The audience began to trust the festival’s artistic direction, and people no longer came only to see one specific artist, but because they knew Lasciati Fiorire would offer something worth their while — even if they’d never heard that name before.

The search for the music of tomorrow

When Matteo talks about the lineup, he keeps using one word: research. Because behind the concerts we’ll see in August there’s work that runs, practically, all year long, he explains. Once an edition ends, Fiore sul Vulcano immediately starts looking around again. Festivals, clubs, showcases, concerts: every occasion becomes a chance to understand what’s happening in the Italian independent scene.

“We travel all over Italy, we see a huge number of live shows, we listen to music, and we’re constantly comparing notes with promoters, labels, organizers and other people in the business. It’s a continuous scouting job.”

The goal isn’t to chase whatever name is working best at the moment, but to catch artists before they blow up and reach the wider public. It happened in past editions with projects like Mago del Gelato and Faccianuvola, who came to Lasciati Fiorire when they were still starting out. And it’s happening again this year.

Friday, August 28, the Garden Stage will host Masamasa, Gioia Lucia and Queen of Saba, while the Jungle Stage closes with a DJ set by Angry.Gu. Saturday it’s the turn of Satantango, Iako and Gaia Banfi, followed by a DJ set from Godblesscomputers. Sunday the festival wraps with Irossa, Amore Audio and Brucherò nei pascoli.

A stage for the new Florentine scene

Opening up to the national scene doesn’t mean forgetting what happens in the city. That’s why the Bloom Stage stays dedicated to emerging local projects — but the work begins long before the festival. During the year Fiore sul Vulcano runs M’Ama non M’Ama, an initiative built to create a meeting point between the people who make music and the people who work in the industry.

Artists can submit their tracks and take part in a collective listening session alongside producers, labels, organizers and other music professionals. It’s a genuine moment of exchange: every project gets feedback, advice and an outside look at its work. The latest editions took place in spaces like ExFila and the Circolo Vie Nuove, involving names like Annibale Records, Musica da Bere and others from the independent scene.

“We care about keeping an eye on what’s happening in Florence. We shifted our focus away from the big local artists, but we’ve never stopped making room for the people just getting started today.”

The two artists chosen through M’Ama non M’Ama will join the Bloom Stage lineup, which on the other two days is built together with Rockit and Novaradio — a way to give space, through different collaborations, to the most interesting projects of the new scene.

Making independent music in Florence

Talking with Matteo Ravazzi, at a certain point the conversation inevitably widens beyond the festival and lands on the Florentine scene. Because organizing Lasciati Fiorire also means reckoning with a city that offers fewer and fewer spaces for independent music. The problem, though, isn’t the audience. “Thinking there’s no interest in Florence is a mistake. The audience is absolutely there. What’s missing are the spaces.”

Ravazzi also speaks as a musician. The Fiore sul Vulcano crew play all over Italy and know the live circuit well. It’s precisely that vantage point that brings up the comparison with cities like Milan, Bologna, Turin or Rome, where there’s a far wider network of clubs, social clubs and cultural spaces able to host emerging artists all year round.

“When an artist puts together a tour, Florence often gets left out. Not because there’s no interest, but because there are so few places to play. For us it becomes almost a mission: if we don’t make the effort to bring them here, a lot of these projects simply skip the city.”

That’s also why places like the Lumen, Glue or ExFila take on such an important role: they aren’t just spots to put on concerts, but cultural strongholds that keep alive a scene often forced to do a lot with few resources.

With the Lumen in particular, the relationship has grown over time. First a few collaborations, then, starting last year, the decision to bring Lasciati Fiorire here. “Today the Lumen has become the festival’s home, but also an ally to share an idea of culture made of music, encounters and community. In a city where independent spaces keep shrinking, finding a place that speaks the same language is no small thing.”

A festival that goes beyond the concerts

This year, too, Lasciati Fiorire won’t be only music. Alongside the live shows, back again are the Only Usato Market, devoted to circular fashion; the Sunset Yoga sessions, which will run all three days after their big success last year; and a program of talks and encounters built together with FLINTA, Scomodo, Novaradio’s La Svolta and Radio Tamarindo, which will follow the festival with interviews and live broadcasts.

“We’ve always tried to build a multidisciplinary festival. Music stays at the center, but we like to bring in different worlds and create chances to meet.”

Five years after its first official edition, Lasciati Fiorire keeps growing without losing the spirit it was born with: to build a party where you go to discover the music we’ll be listening to tomorrow.