The 17th Suwałki Blues Festival featured around 40 blues bands from across Europe, in addition to performers from North America and Venezuela, according to organizers.
European acts included bands from Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Bogdan Topolski, the artistic director of the festival, said in a radio interview on Monday that the event had attracted an audience of up to 16,000 and was met with "positive feedback" from both local residents and tourists.
Topolski told regional broadcaster Radio 5 that the organizers are working to make future iterations of the festival more engaging and entertaining for the general public, not just die-hard blues fans.
The biggest names this year were American blues-and-rock singer and songwriter Sari Schorr, American guitarist and singer Bernard Allison, and Serbian-born US-based blues singer and guitarist Ana Popović.
The contingent of Polish performers included music industry veterans such as Wojciech Waglewski and Maciej Maleńczuk, state news agency PAP reported.
Wojciech Waglewski Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio
Maciej Maleńczuk. Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio
Also gracing the stage was Ania Rusowicz, daughter of Polish blues legend Ada Rusowicz, local media reported.
The 17th Suwałki Blues Festival was held from July 11 to 13.
The Suwałki region, near Poland's northeastern border with Lithuania, has many lakes and forests and is a popular vacation destination valued for its natural beauty.
(gs)
Source: polskieradio.pl, PAP, dzieje.pl, suwalkiblues.com, radio5.com.pl
