
Colours of Ostrava is an international, multi-genre music festival organised annually in Ostrava since 2002. In 2012, the festival was moved to the entrancing surroundings of Dolní Vítkovice – an area that used to belong to metallurgical works, mines and ironworks. The last, 20th year, offered over 350 programme items on 19 open and covered stages – concerts, discussions, theatre performances, films, workshops as well as art activities.
Colours of Ostrava received the Anděl Award for Music Event of 2005 and 2006. At the same time, it was awarded as the best music event of 2004, 2005 and 2006 by the ALMA Survey in the Concert/Festival of the Year category. In 2015 and 2018, the festival made it to the Best Major Festivals shortlist within the European Festival Awards and received the award of Czech Superbrands 2015. In 2016, the Guardian rated the festival as one of the 10 best festivals in Europe.
Colours of Ostrava also organises the free Festival v ulicích (Street Festival) in the centre of Ostrava, the Czech Music Crossroads, a music showcase conference, and the international Meltingpot discussion forum took place at the festival for the first time in 2015.
Dolní Vítkovice is a national site of industrial heritage, located in the Vítkovice district of Ostrava in the Czech Republic. It includes an extensive industrial area Vítkovice ironworks with a unique collection of industrial architecture. A set of three successive parts – coal mine, coke ovens and blast furnace operations – also called Ostravian Hradčany, after Hradčany, the Castle District of Prague. The area is registered in the list of European cultural heritage and was placed on the Czech Republic’s list of tentative UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2001 under the name The Industrial Complexes at Ostrava.
After termination of iron production was discussed what to do with the former industrial complex. At first they wanted to destroy it, but it was rebuilt as a technical monument for future generations. In June 2002 government declared Nether Vítkovice area as a national sight. In December 2008, then as one of four Czech sites given to emerging European cultural heritage site.
In September 2009 the project was awarded to the recovery and reuse of blast furnaces and other protected buildings half billion Czech crowns subsidy from the European Union and the Czech Republic. The main objective of the project “Bringing a new use to Nether Vítkovice” reactivation of the main parts of a national cultural sight Vítkovice, making them accessible to the public and the subsequent use of the potential of NCS for educational, cultural and social activities.















