“A catastrophe in which individual boundaries dissolve into a collective whole.” That’s how Warm Room Collective frame THE END OF IMPACT, borrowed straight from The End of Evangelion. It’s a heavy sentence to open a DIY fest promo with, and honestly that’s exactly what makes the whole thing feel special. Screamo, skramz, hardcore, DIY punk, all the adjacent stuff, it’s incredible that scenes this small can produce something this ambitious, this openly political, this well organised, held together entirely by people who do it because they love it. Four ordinary people in Italy pulled this together as a horizontal collective, and every year they raise the bar.
Tan, Vitto, Marci and Ste are open about the possibility that this fourth chapter might also be the last. “If this truly is our final impact, we want it to be a beautiful and devastating explosion that leaves an indelible mark on everyone who attends.” Whatever happens after, the fest lands at Associazione Ekidna in Carpi (Via Livorno 09, 41012 San Martino Scuole) from Friday July 10 to Sunday July 12, 2026. Friday and Saturday are the more chaotic days by design, Sunday shifts toward something quieter.
The bill covers Italy, Japan, UK, France, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Finland and the Basque Country. Eleven countries under one Ekidna roof, on a lineup that would be impressive coming from a small label, let alone from four people doing it on their own time.
Bands who worked on this multi-interview feature with us are Shooting Daggers (London, via Italy, Spain and France, the powerhouse responsible for this wild banger recorded with Dennis Lyxzén), Víbora (Basque Country), Cady (London), L’Idylle (Rouen), Laurie Bird (Italy) and Lumière (Italy).
Names booked across the three days and repeatedly namechecked in these conversations include Shizune (returning for a third time), Powerplant, Emma Goldman, Put Pùrana, Foscø, Dagerman, Oakhands, Uragano, Yarostan, Emes, Nivra, Vote For Pedro, Nubifragio, Kadreka, Calathea, Marcovaldo, Casamatta, Verogna, Falesia and Flâneur.
“More than music” is the tag Warm Room put under their name, and in 2026 that translates into concrete on-site infrastructure: a dedicated Awareness Team, silence zones for resting your ears and your head, safe capacity over maximum capacity. The awareness and silence work is run in collaboration with Tutta Scena (Jess) and Twogirlzoneskramz (Jess and Sofi), a partnership that started at last year’s edition and that Warm Room now treat as core to what the fest is. You can see how it played out last time. On paper the rest reads as a spec sheet: two live stages, a distro and zine area, a talk and market space, free camping, vegan food, workshops. In practice it’s the whole ethos.
L’Idylle from Rouen say they’d never seen a festival “so accepting and caring” before Impact, and that in France a gathering like this would probably be shut down by the police or banned outright. Laurie Bird echoed the same idea, calling it “curated by people who really care about creating an environment suited to everyone attending.” Víbora, back for their second Ekidna set after headlining the very first Impact edition, described the network the festival plugs into as “not a massive scene, but… very healthy.” Cady framed the ethos sharper, quoting James from Tethered: “DIY music isn’t a subculture, it’s a counter culture.”
Friday, July 10 – Emma Goldman (CA), L’Idylle (FR), Put Pùrana, Older Friends (DE), Ineptitude (NL), Uragano, Casamatta. Aftershow by Ghostboycoma.
Saturday, July 11 – Ostraca (US), Kokeshi (JP), Powerplant (UK), Víbora (EH), Shizune, Oakhands (DE), Calathea (EH), Shooting Daggers (UK), Cady (UK), Plastic Bags For Helmets (CH), Emes (CH), Dagerman., Kadreka, Foscø (ES), Laurie Bird, Nubifragio. Aftershow by Ghostboycoma.
Sunday, July 12 – Moshimoshi (FI), Nivra, Verogna, Falesia, Hatsu No Hado (DE), Marcovaldo, Nirano, Legni Vecchi, Vote For Pedro (UK), Flâneur, Yarostan (FR), Lumière.
Full pass tickets live on the Warm Room Big Cartel. Full lineup, day splits and venue info are up on the fest’s official site.
Below, six bands and the four organisers talk records in progress, the Rouen ecosystem under pressure, London’s screamo comeback, why Mercedes Peon in Galicia changed everything for Shooting Daggers, why Cady rate Jøtnarr as “the best band in the UK”, and why Warm Room might already be plotting what comes after Impact ends.
The bands
Tell us where you sit right now. What you’ve been working on, whether there’s a record or anything new on the way, where your head’s at creatively coming into this summer. Less the standard band intro, more the actual state of things.
Shooting Daggers: We just released a mini Album “The Real Life Thing” and we have been super busy playing mostly abroad, working non-stop on promoting the album and making videos for it.
And we are not done yet, we are always plotting/keeping the creativity going. Sal already started to write lyrics and riff for new stuff too, we literally never stop. But we’re also going to try and enjoy this summer as much as we can, going back home to our family and try to rest when we can to come back with even more creativity.
Víbora: We put a new record last february which we’re really happy about. We enjoyed a lot recording and writing it and it’s been really fun to play all these new songs live. We have a few festivals this summer we’re really excited about and we’ll also be on tour in mexico for the first time in august!
Cady: We’re just about to release our second full length record, Limitations Of The Human Form.
We’d been sitting on a few songs from that album for a while but most of it came together in the space of a few weeks, which is a huge outpouring for a band usually that takes forever to write and record new material. I think we’re pretty happy to just take it easy on the writing front and spend a bit of time playing the new songs to people! We’re all in our mid 30s now and have responsibilities that mean we can’t just jump in a van and go away on tour for a few weeks each summer anymore, so The End Of Impact is going to be our biggest trip coming up, with a few fun UK shows here and there (including a couple with our pals in Ostraca).
L’Idylle: The very start of this year has been crazy for us. As a band we’ve never toured that much before, never had that much opportunity to show what we are all about. Also our last release “Pardon pour mon absence, je suis allé mourir à l’abri des regards” via No Funeral Record got praise from places we weren’t ready for.
It’s great but it comes with its own kind of pressure, it’s emotional and physical tolls. We also have that weird feeling that things are working out for us while everything around us in the world is crumbling, fascism on the rise, war everywhere, Earth burning. So it’s a pretty weird moment. We have the chance to tour with Ostraca and do so many great fest (like the Last Impact which we could only dream of playing still a year ago).
We also have a strong desire to create and share more, to explore other mediums, like building a community-driven website similar to what Myspace used to be, creating visualizers, short films, writing and illustrating a story, making zines, organizing more events in our city. As we always love to complicate our life and to work on many things at the same time, we are already starting to work on the next release and a few things to close the “Pardon pour mon absence…” chapter.
Laurie Bird: we released our first EP “mistake them for flying swans” this past May and we’re playing it around Italy. we’re also writing new stuff which we’re really excited about, it should come out in one or two splits with some friends.
Lumière: In the past couple of months we’ve been working on a bunch of songs. We recorded them in a promo release we hope to bring to the fest on physical format. This was a little complicated as we went through major lineup changes at the start of this year and living so far away from each other made the writing process harder to get through, but we were able to make it work and we hope to make a proper release soon!
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“The End of Impact” is a loaded title. Curious what you think a DIY fest like this actually impacts in 2026, for you as a band and for the wider scene around it. Where does the weight of it land for you, the room, the people in it, the network around it, something else.
Shooting Daggers: We are really looking forward to play this fest as some friends of ours like Deathgoals and Stormo really talked well about it to us and seems we always love to travel Europe and meet local DIY realities. On top of that we are going to be close to Bea’s hometown and can’t wait to see it. We can’t wait to share the stage with such amazing bands that are more niche.
Víbora: It’s amazing to have opportunities like this as a band. It’ll be our second time playing in Ekidna and we just love to do things like this. It’s incredible to have known these people for a few years now and to see how the festival has grown. It’s wonderful to bring together people from different parts of Europe and even from all over the world in the same place. It’s great to see new bands coming up and touring Europe, and to know that the circuit that helped us grow and meet people across the continent is still alive. It’s not a massive scene, but I think it’s very healthy, and being able to reconnect with so many friends we haven’t seen in a long time is always amazing.
Cady: I think that festivals like The End of Impact and any other DIY shows are hugely important. I got introduced to DIY through a very similar fest in Germany (CMAR) a long time ago, and it was life changing. I watched a really good interview with our friend James from Tethered recently who put it really well. DIY music isn’t a subculture, it’s a counter culture. It’s not just a more specific or niche expression of a particular kind of music or culture, it’s an ethos that shows that the way more mainstream creative projects operate isn’t the only option. Creativity, solidarity and inclusivity are valued much more highly than commercial viability and that’s not something that you see anywhere else. Something like The End Of Impact is an extension of all of the DIY shows that go on all over the world. A gathering of like minded people and artists who have no interest in creating a product but want to do something for the love of doing it.
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L’Idylle: It’s really impressive to look at what the Warmroom collective has accomplish in such few years. It’s to us, one of the most important screamo fest in Europe and that isn’t a small thing. The scene here in Europe is thriving, there’s a fire carried by new, young bands all across the old continent. An event like this put a spotlight on them, help us create community and strengthen the bounds we created. I think you can already witness the weight of the Impact fest.
There’s so many screamo fest emerging right now and i think Impact isn’t for nothing about it. I think, to us, the real weight and change is on how the fest is conducted. I’ve never seen before a fest so accepting and caring, there’s silence zones for resting your ear and your mind, and I think that this visions of a caring nurturing fest is so different and can be a real game changer.
This kind of thing simply doesn’t exist in France. Screamo and related genres are still very much associated with “basement shows” here. There are no dedicated festivals. You might catch some of these bands at bigger, more metal-oriented festivals like Motocultor, in larger venues run by independent promoters, or sometimes in a basement or a bar.
But events like the ones we saw in Spain or Italy… they deeply impacted us. They gave us hope, they inspired us. Seeing so many people come together, organize, self-manage, commit to one another, and take care of each other, all centered around music, it’s liberating. In France, an event like that would likely be heavily repressed by the police, or simply banned. It made us feel far less alone than we thought we were.
Laurie Bird: Impact is an incredible festival, some of us have already been in the past and we’re so happy to be playing this year. it’s curated by people who really care about creating an environment suited to everyone attending, reflecting an idea of punk being sociallly and politically aware that we strongly believe in. we really respect WarmRoom for, year after year, taking risks while also staying true to themselves and the audience.
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Lumière: We are very grateful that DIY festivals like this still exist, underground scenes like punk, emo, hardcore etc. can only stay afloat within DIY ethics and it’s getting more difficult day by day. Lots of small venues are being closed or vacated and it has a major impact on small scenes, we thank a lot our friends in Warmroom and to the other DIY collectives in Italy and internationally for keeping everything afloat even through hard times.
Tell us about where you come from. Not the postcard version of your scene, more what’s actually holding it up right now, what’s strained, who the people are keeping the lights on. Bands, venues, collectives that get less attention than they should.
Shooting Daggers: We are all from different countries and haven’t been to our hometowns for a really long time. Our home now is London (quite a big town). We mentioned our favourites promoters/coop/spaces in question number 5.
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Víbora: We are from the Basque Country, where punk had a massive impact back in the 80s and 90s, and countless bands have been keeping the flame alive ever since. Since that era, the entire alternative music scene has been closely linked to the leftist movement and has always carried significant political weight.
Since COVID, a lot of collectives have emerged, organizing gigs in their towns, and it’s been incredible to watch this scene grow. From local bands to touring international acts, there are amazing shows every single week, and I believe these are the people who are truly keeping the alternative scene alive. Some of them are Afterpost in Bilbao, Graka in Getaria or Oztoporik Ez in Bergara. This last couple of years have also been interesting musically, where people from the hardcore scene have been doing new bands with more melodic influences but keeping the DIY philosophy some of our favorites are Dena, Ezta Ilen, Superlore or Ateri.
Cady: London is absolutely incredible at the moment! There are loads of really good, young bands like Christina Carpenter, My Tiny Room, I’m Sorry Emil and Scadenza doing some interesting stuff and really revitalising the screamo scene in London. It’s a big city with a lot happening, so sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with everything that’s going on.
The vast majority of people that come to screamo shows are much younger than us as well. It’s really heartening to see a new wave of people taking an interest in screamo and DIY music. The scene is also much more diverse than it was when we started playing together as a band which is amazing. Special shout out goes to Theo (booking under Real Life Presents) for bringing some of the bigger international screamo and hardcore bands to London, whilst always keeping the lineups fresh and diverse, providing opportunities for newer bands to play with some heroes.
L’Idylle: Our hometown Rouen is a pretty gloomy place. Gothic churches and building everywhere, scars of the WW2 bombing visible in every street corner, poverty, social separation from a river bank to another. The left bank is for the working class (thats where we live together) neglected by social institutions and the municipality, the right one is for the bougie.
The scene is alive and very eclectic. There’s soul music with May, Garage with Flying Blanket Misery, Art Pop with Louise Charbonnel, Electro with Two Circle Figure, Rap with Grollo and 7sens, stoner with Vain Valkyries, surf rock with The Agamemnonzes and even very quality high quality emo with our friends from Apart. The extrem music part is very rich too thanks to collectives like La Harelle, home of Sordide (Death Metal), Iffernet (Black Metal) and also very promising new comers like Cuntroach (best grindcore), Triste Sort (Blackened Punk), Cronenburger (Harsh Noise) or Massue (Doomed hardcore/powerviolence idk) Braises Noires (Nolwen’s our guitarist solo project). All those bands, all those people inspire us, motivate us to keep on going, to be better, to do better.
This is possible thanks to peoples like Thierry (Fifou) from Night Vision. Also we have a lot of chance to have a cultural structure called Le 106 with an incredible and very kind and helping team like Jade, Arthur, Julien, Ludo and so many more. We have had the chance to be professionally supported by the structure this last year (free rehearsal space, technical and professional advice, masterclass etc.). We couldn’t be more grateful.
But, there’s a but, all this ecosystem is very fragile and is in danger. Governmental financial cut in the culture budget, direction decisions, harassment on small venue by bourgeois or police is putting the underground scene in danger in our hometown, but also everywhere in France. It’s happening everywhere. As an answer to the rise of the alternative, political music scene, the Bourgeoisie Culture and the Old World are leading a cultural war on freedom of speech on gathering spaces, defining what is right and what is wrong.
The scene in itself isnt perfect, there’s still many bands that are filled with abusers who protect each other and keep booking one another, working with one another. That’s basically what’s happening in the cultural world of France anyway. The Universities are increasingly infiltrated by the far right movement, just as much as the streets from the right bank. The Bigott in their time burnt Joan Of Arc on the main place here in Rouen, still shop sell items with her silhouette to tourists. Politicians praise her, while doing nothing against people (like the far right) who would today burn her in a blink if they could.
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Laurie Bird: screamo has had a huge comeback in Italy the last few years, which means there are way more shows and artists to be excited about. the scene is also getting younger and pushing to become a better and more inclusive environment: there are still a lot of issues to tackle and bad habits to get rid of but we believe a lot of bands and collectives are putting in the effort to build something better for everyone involved.
Lumière: We come from very different scenes since we all live in different parts of Italy. Some of us have started going to shows in the screamo/hc Emilia Romagna scene (s/o Hound Crew), others come from the punk scene in Florence, currently kept alive by Bad Taste Collective, one of the last remaining DIY collectives in one of the most gentrified cities in our country. Unfortunately more and more of the places we have been attending shows at throughout the years are closing down.
Records, bands, anything from the last year or two that genuinely caught you off guard. The stuff you keep going back to, or something that shifted how you think about what you’re doing.
Shooting Daggers: One of our biggest music revelations that we can all share as a band was experiencing seeing Mercedes Peon live in Galicia a few months back. That was life changing and definitely shifted how we think about our music, it was a mystic experience. It really settled that feeling of wanting to make music until we die, no matter our age. We want to be experimenting with sounds and discovering new tunes, new vibrations, no limits and create art with our girls and queer friends forever and own it.
Víbora: It’s so much fun to keep seeing new bands blow up or keep pushing the genre, or releasing records that feel fresh in a genre you thought was stuck. I loved the Emma Goldman record of last year, also the debut from Benévola which is probably my favourite new band around here. The new Derradeiro Nível that came out a few months ago is also great.
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Cady: Honestly we struggle to keep up with new music at the moment as there is so much great stuff out there! I’d like to mention the best band in the UK, Jøtnarr, who deserve way more recognition. They have a new record out soon. Incredible mix of crust, black metal and riffs. Recently joined by Sam (ex Battle of Wolf 359) on vocals which makes things even better if that was possible.
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L’Idylle: The Major shift for us those last year has been meeting and listening to Chevalier. They are one of the most inspiring band to us and we have the chance to call them friends. Also of course there’s Nubifraggio which we discover on our last tour and are incredible. And it wouldn’t be correct of us to not mention our partners in crime from the french territory Malva and DespiteEverythingItsStillYou or Pluie Cessera. Those 3 bands only are developing a savor of screamo that you can’t find anywhere else in the world, that doesn’t sound like anything else and are very precious to the french Screamo scene. There’s also Alinah that we loved the Saetia cover and we are getting more and more influenced by Love Lost Not Forgotten.
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Laurie Bird: here are a couple of bands/records that have inspired us in the last couple years: Damián Antón Ojeda, Whirr, OPN, Genocide Organ, Prurient, feeble little horse.
Lumière: The last few years were full of interesting releases; we really liked Absent From The Morning Headcount’s 2025 EP, “Compos Mentis”, which has the intensity and rawness of 90s/00s emoviolence without leaning on the genre’s more modern mosh solutions of direct metalcore influence, while still somehow sounding very original. Heavy recommend. All the way from the New York scene there’s Silverdollar’s “Considerations 3”, a groundbreaking debut from a band that’s not afraid to push boundaries, they NEED to be more popular. There are a few records from Italy we feel the need to mention: “Le Stesse Cose Ritornano” by Trelkovsky is one of them, screamo that’s drenched in blackened sounds and dark atmospheres. Noverte’s “Life in Minor” was great too. Noverte are seasoned musicians who just can’t seem to miss, we can only learn from the way they can combine technical accuracy and emotional intensity so effectively.
The End of Impact bill stretches from Italy across to Japan, UK, France, Canada, Germany, all under one Ekidna roof over three days. Anyone on the lineup you’re especially excited to share a room with. Bands you’ve crossed paths with before, ones you’ve been waiting to see live, or names you only know secondhand. Specific picks welcome.
Shooting Daggers: As an international band ourselves, we are from London but also Italian, Spanish and French, we love to see a mixed bill with bands from across the world. Super excited to see Shizune, Oakhands, Put Purana and Fosco. Laurie Bird for a chill one too.
Víbora: Ostraca is probably the band for Víbora. All four of us listen to very different music and sometimes it is hard to agree on a band, but we all love Ostraca and everything they’ve released. The new record is amazing as expected. We played with them a couple of years ago in ZBR Fest and they absolutely crushed it. I’m also really excited about Cady and Dagerman, which I’ve never seen. Also our friends Calathea and Fosco who I’m sure will be some of the best sets of the fest.
 
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Cady: It’s another outstanding lineup so feeling super lucky to be a part of it. We’ve got some old friends playing this year who we haven’t seen for a while (e.g. Ostraca, Uragano), new friends who have been inspirational recently (Foscø, Dagerman) and some bands I haven’t seen before but am excited to watch (Shizune, Oakhands, Emes, Yarostan, to name a few). But I always try to keep a few bands unknown for fests like this, so I can get surprised on the day!
L’Idylle: Well of course there’s Ostraca, and Emma Goldman which we love. But we also are so so happy to play with our friends in Put Purana since it’s a band we love so much and we’ve never been able to see live. And there’s so many band to be honest, from Dagerman to Fosco, Kadreka, vote for Pedro, Cady, Laurie Bird, Yarostan, Emes, Vibora, Calathea, Nivra… i mean i could list the all bill cause every band is incredible!!
Laurie Bird: we’re all stoked to see Cady, L’Idylle and Vote for Pedro live, as well as Ostraca which we’ve been listening to for a while. we’ve already played with Nubifragio and Lumière so it’ll be great to share the stage again.
Lumière: We are very hyped for Powerplant and Emma Goldman, we still can’t believe that we’re playing at the same festival! :O We’re also happy to share the bill again with Verogna, Falesia, Flanêur and last but not least Laurie Bird. Most of us haven’t seen them live yet, despite the fact that our band’s old lineup has played with them already back in October, but their new EP “Mistake them from flying swans” completely floored all of us.
Their precision sets a new standard for Italian screamo, we can only hope to get as good at our craft as they are ahaha. Other honorable mentions are Nivra, who will play outside of Sardinia for the first time on the same day as our set will be, Vote for Pedro, who have released a really solid demo last year, and Nubifragio, one of Italian emo (& adjacent)’s most promising names. Also s/o to Cady, Ostraca, Marcovaldo and Casamatta, all very talented musicians who we can’t wait to see live!
Beyond End of Impact, any other festivals, spaces or DIY initiatives out there right now doing work you think matters. Could be local, could be on the other side of the world.
Shooting Daggers: Co-op places like the Pie house, in deptford london, a space for the outcast in London (queer anarchist punk place). Crowley Club in Brighton, 1 in 12 in Bradford. Promoters like Disforia Punx, The real life present, South London Scum in London to name a few.
Víbora: I believe that every single job or action, from the smallest thing to putting on incredible festivals like this one, truly matters. Whether it’s bands pulling their music from Spotify, or those who still believe that being a political band is important, to the people putting together gigs after working an 8-hour shift at a factory. Speaking of DIY initiatives I think right now near our home the people in Galicia from Land’s End Hardcore are doing such a great job. They put a lot of shows from bands on tour and also their fest is amazing, Land’s End Hardcore Fest. We had the chance to play there this year and we loved it.
Cady: There’s a lot of great stuff out there at the moment. New Friends fest and ZBR fest in Canada, DIY fest in The Netherlands, A World of our Own fest in Germany, Istia fest in Malaysia, Reality Unfolds and Under a Banished Sky fest in the UK, and many more. As we said before, what’s most important is that these events are being organised for the love of it, not profit. To create a space where ideas can be shared, friendships can be made and strengthened, and maybe also catch some cool bands while you do it.
L’Idylle: Well it wouldn’t be fair for us to not do shout out to fest like Emostiù (Spain, Barcelona), World of our own (Ger, Berlin) Post in Paris (FR, Paris), BOB fest (IT, Milano) or DIY or DIE (IT, Milano) and I am sure there’s so much more I dont know about but all those fest are doing something so important, they are keeping spaces alive for people who need it.
As organization i want to salute especially what VoiceOfTheUnheard/SWMP and Fireflies fall records are doing in France for the scene, and of course, our very good friends in Headache Booking, the french screamo scene wouldn’t be what it is today without them that’s certain. To fight back against authoritarianism, to lead the cultural war that the bourgeoisie, the fascists are waging against us, we need sonic weapons in the form of music, we need armors in the forms of screamed lyrics, we need legion in the form of community, we need battlefield in the form of venues. All the bands, the organization we talked about above, all of them take part in this cultural war against fascism.
The New Lords of Concrete and Ashes that rule the world right now are dreaming of emotionless AI, of dispossessing us of our feelings, of our agency and our capacity to scream in rage, against injustice war and genocide. In despair against the state of the Earth. And in love for the people that makes existence a little bit less difficult, our loved ones. So we can only thanks everyone above to take side in this war, and we can only smile in happiness and solidarity to the thought of fighting at their side. UNITED AGAINST WHAT BRINGS PAIN. WE’LL SKRAMZ UNTIL EVERYONE IS FREE. FUCK CAPITALISM. FUCK FASCISM. FUCK ALL OPPRESSIONS AND OPPRESSORS.
Laurie Bird: we’d love to shout out rmskrmz for holding it down for screamo-adjacent music in Rome, Selva Fest where we’ll also be playing this summer and our friend Fuzzkid from Adescite Crew in Genoa.
Lumière: First of all we have to give a shoutout to Non Mi Piace, a DIY collective who’s putting everyone in Bologna onto really crazy projects and to Hound Crew that is reviving the hardcore scene on the East Coast of Italy, also props to Scissors DIY from New York City, we definitely need more queer run spaces around the world! As for festivals, A World Of Our Own and Rites of Spring fests are some of the most promising emo-adjacent fests in Germany, and lastly we need to mention Selva Fest from northern Italy.
Warm Room Collective
Third edition now. What’s harder than year one, what’s easier, what changed about how you actually put it together.
Warm Room Collective: What’s easier is trust for sure. In year one, you are just a nameless idea pitching a wild dream to bands across the world. Now, in our fourth year, the underground network knows who we are and what we stand for.
Having bands like Víbora return after headlining our very first edition, or Shizune hitting our stage for the third time, is proof that what we’ve built is more than just a simple lineup of bands. The hardest part is undoubtedly raising the bar higher and higher every year. One of our main goals for the festival is to offer the best possible experience to the audience, and striving to do so while constantly improving is certainly the most challenging aspect in the long run.
Even though there are only four of us, over the years we believe we’ve found a good way to manage the event. Of course, we can’t be perfect. That’s the beauty of DIY. Over time, we’ve worked hard to implement many small improvements that have left us feeling satisfied in hindsight, year after year.
The bill spans Italy, Japan, UK, France, Canada, Germany. Walk us through how this lineup came together. Was there a guiding instinct behind who you wanted in the room, or did it grow piece by piece. Is there a throughline across the three days, or is the spread itself the point.
Warm Room Collective: We simply try every time to involve all the bands we like without setting too many limits. Whether they’re audience members from previous editions who we discovered have a band, or a group we all listen to from the other side of the world, we try sending an email and keep our fingers crossed. Very often, that’s all it takes.
Of course, there can be unexpected events and complications that need to be dealt with. But when people say that sometimes the unthinkable becomes reality just by trying, we’ve found this to be much truer than we could ever have imagined when we first started. There’s no clear dividing line between the days. We simply arrange the bands so that Friday and Saturday are more chaotic, while on Sunday we try to keep things a little more chill, so to speak. Of course, there are exceptions because we can’t apply this rule consistently across the entire lineup.
“More than music” sits under the Warm Room name everywhere you put it. What does that actually look like in practice in 2026 when you’re running shows, putting a fest together, dealing with venues, bands, the whole logistics side.
Warm Room Collective: We believe that in 2026, “more than music” means radical attention and political awareness. It means that organizing a festival or a show cannot be separated from the struggles taking place in the world outside the event venue. In practice, this means prioritizing safe spaces over maximum capacity.
It means, for example, having a dedicated Awareness Team on site to prevent and address any form of harassment, discrimination, or boundary violations. It means being committed to doing everything in the spirit of DIY no matter what, to prove that these things can be done if you want them to be, even starting from scratch and with just a few people. Venues like Ekidna and La Tenda have played a fundamental role in this over the years, and we will be eternally grateful to them for believing in this as much as we do.
Your read on Italian DIY right now. Where the scene is, what’s growing, what’s under pressure, who’s doing work that doesn’t travel internationally but should.
Warm Room Collective: The Italian DIY scene is under immense institutional and economic pressure. Independent, squatted, and self-managed spaces are constantly facing closures, evictions, or tightening restrictions. It’s harder than ever to keep the lights on. Yet, the resilience is actually astonishing. In Italy exists, and continues to grow steadily, an entire network of collectives, bands, distributors, and countercultural spaces that work tirelessly every week.
This scene does not always expand internationally due to language barriers or a lack of institutional support, but its essence is as pure and radical as that of any other scene in the world, if not more so. Right now, there is new blood pumping constantly through the underground and we couldn’t be more happy to witness this.
“The End of Impact” as a title. Where did it come from, what does it mean to the four of you. Statement about the fest, the scene, the moment, something more personal, all of the above.
Warm Room Collective: The title is an obvious reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion. Following the festival trilogy, this fourth chapter could only be titled “The End of Impact,” directly mirroring The End of Evangelion: a catastrophe in which individual boundaries dissolve into a collective whole.
But it’s not just that. Evangelion is also fundamentally about the painful choice to continue existing and fighting as individuals rather than fading into a painless void, and this is precisely where the title takes on a deeply personal meaning for all of us. To be transparent, “The End of Impact” might also mean the final edition of this festival, we don’t even know for sure ourselves.
Organizing a 100% DIY international festival of this scale as a horizontal collective of four people is an exhausting and relentless challenge. We’ve dedicated our lives to this project, but we have to be honest about the toll it takes on us. More than anything else, we hope that what we’ve done in our own small way can serve as a source of inspiration for the next generation of collectives.
We want them to look at what four ordinary people have built from scratch and realize that they, too, can step up and do the same. This title is our way of acknowledging that we may have reached our final phase for this festival. If this truly is our final impact, we want it to be a beautiful and devastating explosion that leaves an indelible mark on everyone who attends. Just as we’d imagined it from the very beginning.
Five years from now, what do you want Warm Room to be. Or if five years is too far, the next thing you’re trying to build after this edition.
Warm Room Collective: In the near future, we just want Warm Room to remain an uncompromising, reliable node in the global DIY network, supporting younger bands and the underground Italian scene. Moving forward, we will simply continue to carry out our regular shows and strengthen our collaborations with other like-minded collectives.
In fact, we are extremely excited to be involved by the crew of Rebirth Fest for their second edition, which will take place at Associazione Ekidna in early December. On top of that, we are already working hard on booking future shows and dates for late 2026 and early 2027. The work doesn’t stop.
Full pass tickets: Warm Room Big Cartel. Full fest info: The End of Impact official site. Venue: Ekidna, Carpi.
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