HMBB is a band battle that aims to give purpose to the more advanced bands in Estonia to take their game to the next level!
Heavy Music Estonia is working with partners and contacts from Estonia and abroad to put together a selection of prizes worth fighting for!
In addition to festival slots, we also put together a jury of international music industry experts, creating a valuable networking opportunity to all the participating bands!
For two years, one of the prizes has been a slot on our Rock Stage at one of the biggest festivals in Estonia, Õllesummer.
In 2025, the main prize was a slot at a legendary Polish festival Mystic
This time, the bands were so good that Mystic decided to take TWO bands to Gdansk!
In 2026, Heavy Music Band Battle joined forces with Tallinn Music Week and also promoters from Latvia and Lithuania, in order to take a first step towards covering the entire Baltic region!
How it works –
First we make an open call.
Then we put together an international jury who listens to all the songs and makes a selection of 12 semifinalists.
Then we put on 2 Semifinals
Semifinal has a public vote and a jury vote. 3 bands move on from each semifinal.
6 bands will make it to the Grand Final where we have an international jury in place to review and judge the bands firsthand!
in 2025 HMBB, Jarek, the representative from Mystic Festival, had the first pick. Then Rocktagons festival chose their candidate and then Heavy Music Estonia chose the band for our Rock Stage. Altogether 3 bands received festival slots and all 6 finalists had the opportunity to play in front of an international jury!
That’s pretty sweet for an Estonian band.
In 2026, Heavy Music Band Battle upgraded once again – we managed to include the Band Battle Grand Final to Tallinn Music Week official program. And for the first time, we tried to include Latvia and Lithuania into the battle aswell.
Our Latvian partner would organize Band Battle Latvia and the winner would come over to our grand final in Tallinn.
Since we don’t have a partner in Lithuania, we will make an open call for Lithuanian bands and will let an international jury work out the best of the best from there – they will then be invited to the grand final in Tallinn aswell. Perhaps this will motivate some Lithuanian promoters to step up and organize a proper Lithuanian battle in 2027.
Once again, Mystic Festival has put TWO slots on the table and we are in talks with other partners in order to add more prizes to the pool.