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!
Since 2026, our Grand Final is part of the official program of Tallinn Music Week, giving the finalists maximum exposure in terms of the audience and the music industry representatives.
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! (Below the Grand Final jury of 2026)
Since 2026 our Estonian partner is Tallinn Rock Festival (below the TRF slot winners of 2026)
in 2024 and 2025, one of the prizes was a slot on our curated 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
The first time Mystic was involved, the bands were so good that Mystic decided to take TWO bands to Gdansk! From this day forward, this is the way!
In 2027, Heavy Music Estonia aims to take the HMBB across Baltics as the first major step towards uniting the Baltic heavy music scene. With Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all organising the open calls and semifinals and the grand final will take place at Tallinn Music Week in april 2027.
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 put TWO slots on the table and so did our new partner Tallinn Rock Festival.