Students can complete Finland’s biggest student event without alcohol

Hämeenkatu appro, billed as Finland’s largest student event, can be completed without alcohol, Yle journalist Lenni Lehtonen found. But alcohol still appeared to dominate the event, which he describes as a window into Finnish student culture.

Lehtonen took part in the event in Tampere for the third time. Participants had four hours to collect 12 stamps. First-time participants needed seven stamps, while those attending for a second time needed nine.

He earned all 12 stamps without drinking alcohol, visiting a few cafes, a couple of kiosks and the remaining stamp stations at Keskustori. Although not every station offered cafe products, he said an alcohol-free route was now a real option rather than an exception.

Students Lehtonen met welcomed the cafes’ involvement. Cafe products and smoothies could not fill an entire stamp card, but they offered lighter alternatives alongside alcohol and restaurant options.

Even so, Lehtonen had to search to find participants taking an alcohol-free approach. Most people he saw were drinking alcohol they had brought themselves or sitting in bars. One group summed up its frustration after approaching a cafe: “You can’t get anything to drink here.”

The share of university students who said they had consumed alcohol in the previous year fell from 2021 to 2024, according to the latest results from the Student Health and Wellbeing Survey. Among men, the figure dropped from 90 to 82 per cent at universities and from 89 to 85 per cent at universities of applied sciences. Among women, it fell from 89 to 85 per cent at universities and remained unchanged at universities of applied sciences.

Hämeenkatu appro has been held for more than 40 years. Lehtonen writes that the event and student culture are in the process of reshaping themselves, and that the direction of change matters more than how quickly it happens.