Release Athens

Release Athens is an annual summer music festival held at Plateia Nerou, the open-air ground of the Olympic complex at Faliro. The 2026 edition marked the festival’s 10th anniversary and ran on 18 nights between Saturday 13 June and Saturday 25 July. Most nights were at Plateia Nerou. Chris Isaak opened the edition on 13 June at the Lycabettus Theatre, and two nights ran on the Great Lawn of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center as Release Athens x SNF Nostos.

David Byrne headlined the Great Lawn on 21 June, with Nation of Language on their first visit to Greece. Jean-Michel Jarre followed on 22 June with a set drawn from Oxygène, Équinoxe and Magnetic Fields. At Plateia Nerou, Limp Bizkit played on 15 June, Gorillaz on 25 June with The Flaming Lips and Jehnny Beth, and Pet Shop Boys on 27 June with their Dreamworld greatest-hits show. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds played a set of about two and a half hours on 24 June, extended after Anna von Hausswolff withdrew from the bill to recover from surgery.

The heavier nights brought Three Days Grace on 28 June, Megadeth with Sepultura on 30 June, The Offspring with Bad Religion on 7 July, and Helloween with Saxon on 10 July. Pantera played on 9 July, their first concert in Greece. Moby headlined on 1 July with Garbage, and Pavlos Pavlidis on 5 July. Imiskoumbria marked 30 years with two sold-out nights, on 20 June and 3 July.

Sabaton closed the edition on 25 July, with Savatage and Epica on the same bill. From 2027 the festival moves to the Markopoulo Complex, on the Markopoulo Olympic property in Attica.