Release Athens is leaving Plateia Nerou. After ten years on the Faliro coastline, the festival announced on September 29th 2026 that its 2027 edition moves inland to Markopoulo Complex, the Olympic Properties site at Markopoulo Mesogeas, and that it will run on two stages rather than one. The first name attached to the new site is The Neighbourhood, playing Greece for the first time on Friday 25th of June 2027. Tickets open on Thursday 1st of October at 12:00.
For a festival that has effectively been the anchor of the Athens summer calendar - the run that brought Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue, Fontaines D.C., Pantera and Jean-Michel Jarre to the same stretch of coast - changing address is not a minor operational note. It changes what the festival can physically do.
Ten years at Plateia Nerou, and what came after
Plateia Nerou gave Release Athens a single large open-air stage a short walk from the sea and a tram ride from the centre. It also gave it a hard ceiling. One stage means one act at a time, which means a festival day is a linear queue of performances and the line-up is capped by the clock rather than by the budget or the booking.
The ten years produced the run that made the festival's reputation. Recent editions alone put Kylie Minogue, Fontaines D.C. with Shame and Boy Harsher, Supergrass and The Damned, and a Dream Theater, Mastodon and Haken closing night on that one stage in 2025, followed by Pantera and Jean-Michel Jarre in 2026. It also produced the constraint those line-ups were fitted around: every one of those acts had to be slotted into the same sequence on the same stage, and anything that did not fit the sequence did not get booked.
Markopoulo Complex removes that ceiling. The site sits on Ippodromou in Markopoulo Mesogeas, east of the city in the Mesogeia plain, on land developed for the 2004 Games and since repurposed for large-scale events. It is a different kind of space - inland, flat and built around capacity rather than a view.
Two stages, one of them under 4,000 square metres of tent
The structural change is the second stage. Release Athens 2027 will run two of them, with the second housed inside a tent of roughly 4,000 square metres. That is the detail worth paying attention to, and not only because it doubles the slots available on any given day.
A covered second stage is a different programming instrument from an open-air main stage. It allows acts that do not want to play under a June sky at 21:00 - quieter records, club-facing bookings, anything built for a dark room - to sit on the same day-ticket as a headliner without being swallowed. Greek festivals have historically struggled to hold both of those audiences on one site. Two stages, one of them enclosed, is how that becomes possible.
Getting there - Attiki Odos, Koropi and parking
The obvious cost of moving inland is access, and it is the part the announcement addresses most directly. The site connects to the city via Attiki Odos, and the nearest metro station is Koropi on Line 3, with a shuttle bus service running to the venue. Parking is the clearest gain over Faliro: the complex has room for several thousand vehicles, which is not something Plateia Nerou could offer at any point in its ten years.
In practice this trades a tram-and-walk arrival for a motorway-or-metro one. For anyone travelling from the northern and eastern suburbs, or from the airport side of Attica, Markopoulo is considerably closer than Faliro ever was. For the centre and the west, it is further. The shuttle from Koropi is the part worth watching once the schedule is published.
The first name: The Neighbourhood
Release Athens opened the 2027 announcement with The Neighbourhood on Friday 25 June, their first show in Greece. The Californian band formed in 2011 and broke through with "Sweater Weather", a 2012 single that reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and then found a second and much larger audience on streaming almost a decade later. They went on indefinite hiatus in February 2022, announced their reunion in August 2025, and released (((((ultraSOUND))))) that November through Warner Records.
The Athens date sits inside The Wourld Tour, the band's first arena-scale world tour, which opened in Austin in March 2026 and takes in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. Mood's catalogue already carries several of those dates - Barclays Center, the Kaseya Center and the Kia Forum among them - alongside the band's own Mood profile. It is an opening booking aimed squarely at an audience in its twenties, which is a reasonable signal of what the rest of the 2027 line-up is being built around.
Tickets and prices
Tickets go on sale on Thursday 1st of October 2026 at 12:00, with a first-phase price of €65. Later price phases have not been announced, which in practice means the opening tier is the cheapest the date will be. A limited number of VIP tickets start at €250 and include an elevated viewing area with stands and stools, an open bar, a separate entrance and restrooms, private parking and a commemorative gift.
Sales run through Release Athens's own channels - by phone on 211 770 0000, online, and at physical sales points - with more.com listed as the ticketing partner. Full details on pricing, schedule and access are published at releaseathens.gr. Mood lists the event and links out to the official seller; it does not sell tickets itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Release Athens 2027 taking place?
At Markopoulo Complex, on Ippodromou in Markopoulo Mesogeas, east of Athens. The festival is moving there from Plateia Nerou in Faliro, where it was held for ten years.
How do I get to Markopoulo Complex?
By car via Attiki Odos, with parking for several thousand vehicles on site, or by metro to Koropi on Line 3 and then a shuttle bus to the venue.
When do tickets go on sale and how much are they?
Thursday 1st of October 2026 at 12:00. First-phase tickets are €65; VIP tickets are limited and start at €250. Further price phases will be announced later.
Who has been announced for Release Athens 2027 so far?
The Neighbourhood, on Friday 25th of June 2027 - their first ever performance in Greece. It is the only name announced at this stage; the rest of the line-up follows.
Will Release Athens 2027 have more than one stage?
Yes. The 2027 edition runs two stages, the second inside a tent of roughly 4,000 square metres, which allows more artists to perform on each festival day than the single-stage Plateia Nerou site allowed.
Everything else coming up in the city is on Mood's Athens event listings.
