The Nova Festival was about peace, music and light. So why has the music industry been so silent about the atrocities of October 7.
Visiting the Nova Exhibition for the first time, I finally began to understand the pain my Jewish friends have been going through over these last horrendous two years and seven months.
The very fact that the venue remained tucked away in a quiet backstreet of London because of security fears was so sad to witness even before I entered the exhibition.
Once inside I got to absorb the pure joy and hedonism of the Nova festival, and just what dancing until sunrise meant to the devoted music lovers from all over the world who had traveled to Israel to enjoy the festival. Then, just after sunrise, their world fell apart and one of the biggest atrocities we have seen in our time unfolded.
After watching a short video and hearing from some of the survivors, we were ushered into the main exhibition, and one could not help but feel emotional at the horror of the burned-out cars, people scrambling to hide in porta-loo toilets and being shot at once inside, the attacks and sexual crimes against men and women. It was all laid bare in the exhibition.
As we walked about the candlelit halls where the faces of the souls who lost their lives were hung on the walls, each person's story was shared in a caption, making their loss all the more poignant, rather than reducing them to statistics we often hear in the news.
These were real people, real mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.
Among them was a wheelchair-bound teenage girl with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy and her father who came to enjoy the festival together. Their lifeless bodies were later found embracing one another as the doting father protected his little girl until the very end.
There were twin brothers whose families would be mourning them, the unexpected martyrs who would lose their lives trying to protect everyone else. Let us not forget the sea of Israeli soldiers and police who lost their life as they fought against the Hamas terrorists.
Within weeks of the October 7 attack, I was sitting at my newsdesk thinking it was only a matter of time before they would announce a concert to commemorate those who lost their lives at the Nova music festival.
I mean, they did this for the horrendous terrorist attacks in Manchester at the Ariana Grande concert, it was surely just a matter of time before the Nova victims were commemorated too.
Weeks went by, months went by... crickets.
What shocked me was why the music world was so silent.
Until this day there has been no official tribute or commemoration for those murdered and kidnapped at the Nova Music Festival massacre.
Were their lives really not worthy of being commemorated?
At the same time, Glastonbury gave a major platform to strongly anti-Israel voices and performances. In 2025, acts including Bob Vylan and Kneecap sparked outrage after anti-Israel chants and rhetoric during performances, including chants of “Death to the IDF."
Instead of mourning and honouring the dead from October 7, Jews all over the world have been left having to defend their faith as mixed messages about Hamas get plastered all over the media.
The Nova festival brings to light a story I feel must be written in history books and form part of school curriculums all over the world.
Here's why it is so important and cannot be overlooked. The Nova Music Festival was founded as a space for shared creativity and cultural diversity and was a regular, popular festival held around Israel, known as a "journey of unity and love", bringing together thousands of young people from around the world, for an all-night trance music party. On October 7, 2023, the vibrant celebration of music, freedom, and community became the site of the deadliest attack on a music gathering worldwide. In the brutal assault on more than 3,000 unarmed festival-goers, 413 were murdered, hundreds were injured and 44 were abducted and taken into Gaza.
The Nova Exhibition first opened in Tel Aviv in 2024, followed by runs in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Toronto, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, Buenos Aires and Berlin, before coming to London in May. The Nova Exhibition has attracted over 600,000 visitors, including thousands of students, educators, political, faith-based and community leaders and members. Despite the resounding silence from the music world, a few stars from the sports and entertainment industry have also attended the exhibit, including Diplo, SIA, Usher, Jessica Alba, Will Ferrell, Kristen Bell, David Schwimmer and Cindy Crawford.
The Tribe of Nova Foundation was launched by the producers of The Nova Music Festival, following the atrocities on October 7. The foundation was formed to provide assistance for those impacted by the massacre. The goal of this initiative is to save lives, help heal and empower the community, prevent suicides and create a community-based outlet for all attendees. This includes financial aid, social integration, and mental and occupational therapies for the survivors and their families. In addition, The Tribe of Nova Foundation provides the survivors with weekly therapy meet-ups and other holistic treatments.
Net proceeds from the exhibition go towards the healing journey of the survivors and the bereaved families. Go and see it.
Sarah Tetteh is an award-winning journalist and presenter
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