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Reviews

• Way to expensive and messy experience

  URBNBeat,

  Jul 5, 2025

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  1.00

  Copenhagen Photo Festival 2025 I must say, I am quite astonished and disappointed by how unprofessional and profit-oriented this year’s Copenhagen Photo Festival has turned out to be. I will certainly not be participating in next year’s festival if it is run by the same organizers. It’s honestly a shame, because it could have been a truly interesting experience if handled by a far more professional team. Below, I’ve listed a number of points that describe my experience of this year’s festival: Their website was not only difficult to navigate and confusing, but it also contained several broken links that either led to error pages (404) or incorrect destinations. To me, this is a clear sign that the site was not properly reviewed before it went live. Hopelessly unprofessional. The prices were generally far too high in relation to what was offered. For example, one had to purchase a day pass just to access a book market, which consisted of about 8–10 small tables with fairly insignificant content. One stand had old catalogues, another had old books — which honestly seemed more suited for a flea market. Compared to the free entry to the Charts book fair, where a wide range of publishers showcased their work, this felt like a rather embarrassing insult to us paying guests. VIP events, for which tickets could not be purchased, were organized for a small, exclusive VIP group — so why even include them in the program? In every way, it felt exclusionary toward other people with an interest or practice in art photography. When I had a question about one of the listed events on the website, I called the provided phone number. A voice simply said, “Maja?” — and nothing else. The person never followed up on the call either. A rather unprofessional approach. Several of the “free” events listed on the website were exhibitions that had already opened before the festival began — for example, at the Black Diamond library. This mostly came across as “artificial filler” to bulk up an otherwise thin program. I also met several people who had purchased both a day pass and a ticket to Martin Parr’s talk on opening day — not realizing that the Parr ticket automatically included access to the exhibition on the same day. So the day pass was unnecessary. This information was somewhat cryptically written in small italicized text at the very bottom of the event page for the Parr talk. Profit optimization? It certainly felt like it. The festival is called “Copenhagen Photo Festival,” yet it spanned a much larger geographic area — including Malmö and Jutland. So why call it “Copenhagen”? Again, it felt like an artificial attempt to inflate an otherwise diluted festival program. The exhibitions at the Royal Danish Theatre were unstructured, and the location was far too dark. Photos were hung along staircases and in dimly lit corridors, many without captions — except for Parr’s (clearly prioritized) main exhibition. Instead, there was a printed list of image descriptions — without photos and without numbering — which made it unclear which description belonged to which photo. Unprofessional and poorly organized. The fact that a day-pass system was chosen instead of a proper festival pass (as in previous years) clearly indicates that this year’s priority was profit over a positive user experience. I also spoke with several volunteers who were working hard for free — which makes me wonder: who is actually benefiting from the excessively high prices at this year’s festival? And if the festival receives any form of public funding, then my concerns about the exclusive “VIP events” (CPH+) raise serious questions — it’s not exactly a very inclusive approach. If I could give them zero stars, I would — because this has been a genuinely negative experience for me. Overpriced, poorly executed, and disorganized.