Tartu 2024 in numbers

The main and side programme included a total of 350 projects with 1,602 diverse events. The main programme, funded by Tartu 2024, consisted of 152 projects.

More than 35,000 people attended the opening ceremonies in downtown Tartu and at the Estonian National Museum, and over 231,000 watched the broadcast on television.

Banners related to Tartu 2024 events were displayed a total of 42 million times across the channels of Tartu 2024 media partner Delfi. In addition, Tartu 2024 content appeared 52 times in Päevaleht, Maaleht, Eesti Ekspress, and MK-Estonia. Delfi also featured a dedicated section highlighting Tartu 2024 experiences.

Alongside Tartu, 19 municipalities in Southern Estonia held the title of European Capital of Culture: Antsla, Elva, Kambja, Kanepi, Kastre, Luunja, Nõo, Otepää, Peipsiääre, Põlva, Rõuge, Räpina, Setomaa, Tõrva, Valga, Võru and Tartu rural municipalities, as well as the cities of Võru and Viljandi. The network of Southern Estonian local governments will continue its work even after the title year ends.

Tartu 2024’s Car-Free Avenue, which served as the living room of the Capital of Culture with performances by local and international artists, was visited 177,000 times in 2024.

Young people aged 14–19 involved in the Extended youth programme have so far organized 29 events, attended by more than 17,000 youths. Extended will continue in 2025 with its fourth cohort.

According to a nationwide survey by Kantar Emor, 90% of respondents knew that Tartu, together with Southern Estonia, was the European Capital of Culture in 2024. The sample size of the survey was 1,228 people.

The Capital of Culture had forecasted a total of one million visits to programme events, with 10% coming from international visitors. Although the reporting is not yet final, it can be confidently stated that the one million visit mark has been surpassed.

The concert performance “Suudlev Tartu” was attended in person by over 15,000 people. The broadcast was watched by 176,000 viewers on Estonian Television, and the well-known Eurovision singer Conchita Wurst was also present.

Since 2021, there have been 4,672  volunteers within the framework of the Capital of Culture. In total, volunteers have contributed 106,786 hours to the Tartu 2024 activities.

The solo exhibition of renowned Japanese artist Ryōji Ikeda at the Estonian National Museum was visited by 34,024 people, including 704 students as part of the Tartu 2024 education programme. Two new works were created: the critical paths, an audiovisual installation inspired by scientific data from the Estonian Biocentre, and vox aeterna, a sound installation developed in collaboration with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir.

Sting, Tartu Song Festival, Genialistid, Bryan Adams, Hauser, and Jacob Collier & Take 6 — these Tartu Song Festival Grounds events, part of the Tartu 2024 programme, drew a total of 48,500 attendees. They spent over €2.8 million on tickets and around €2.3 million on accommodation, transport, food, and drinks. Every second concertgoer came from outside Southern Estonia.

A total of 837,786 Tartu 2024 special edition products were sold. These included Premia ice cream, cakes from Gustav, Lõuna Pagarid bread, A. Le Coq’s Lust beer and Lillepidu lemonade, the Deary tofu snack “tofuke,” and Peninuki’s Elix 24 spirit. Altogether, 4,871,500 products carrying the Tartu 2024 label were sold. These included Salvest soups, Smushie and Põnn products, Tere milk, and A. Le Coq’s Aura water and Premium Export suitcase.

Tartu 2024 special programmes and live broadcasts on ERR received 3.7 million views in 2024. Among them was “Märt and Ott’s Tartu 2024 Culture Calendar,” a 15-episode series in which Märt Avandi and Ott Sepp introduced events from the Tartu 2024 programme. In addition, several major broadcasts aired from Tartu, including Terevisioon, Eesti Laul, the Tartu 2024 opening ceremony, the concert performance “Suudlev Tartu”, the Tartu 2024 summer party, the special programme “Ikeda’s Universe”, and many others.

Tartu 2024 ambassador Kunnar Karu reached the summit of Mount Everest with the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 flag on May 24, 2023. Tartu 2024 was, quite literally, on top of the world — a feat no other Capital of Culture has achieved before.

In 2024, Tartu 2024 was one of the most searched terms in Estonia on Google (in the events category). Among Tartu 2024 events, Bryan Adams also made it into the TOP 10. Additionally, Skyscanner ranked the most popular travel search destinations of 2024, with Tartu reaching second place on the list.

Media monitoring by Station, covering the period from January 2023 to January 2025, revealed that the keyword Tartu 2024 appeared in 8,252 different media mentions, reaching an audience of 450 million people. Of these mentions, 81% were positive, 16% neutral, and only 3% carried a negative tone.

In 2024, the Tartu 2024 website was visited by 761,625 unique users. The most popular months were July (117,604), August (111,518), and January (96,909).

65% of the projects in the Tartu 2024 main programme had an international partner. In total, they involved 508 different partners from abroad.

According to Statistics Estonia, the number of overnight stays in South Estonia increased by 2.6% in 2024 compared to 2023. Overnight stays by foreign tourists rose by 15% in Tartu and by 13% in other parts of South Estonia. Nationwide, the average number of overnight stays by international tourists increased by 11%. The data includes only hotel statistics.

Compared to the peak tourism year of 2019, the number of overnight stays was 9% lower. Tourism figures were affected by the decline in Russian tourists, a sense of insecurity due to the war, high cost of living, and Tartu’s high accommodation prices. Additionally, there are fewer lodging options in Tartu than there were in 2019.

We hosted nearly 200 foreign journalists from more than 20 countries.

Notable media outlets covering Tartu 2024 included: The New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Sun, Der Spiegel, National Geographic, YLE, Helsingin Sanomat, Vogue, and German TV channels Arte, NDR, ZDF, among others.

Among Tartu 2024’s well-known cultural ambassadors, Estonia’s most cultured pig — Limpa — also became a Tartu 2024 brand ambassador. Limpa took part in 15 Tartu 2024 events, bringing joy to both young and old.

In 2024, owned channel visibility reached 67.8 million. The total number of followers across social media channels was 55,408. TikTok was the only organic (unpaid) channel, where we reached 2.9 million people — 52.8% of whom were aged 18–24.