Returning volunteer Sofia Azcona brings you the ultimate guide to festivals this summer.
Sun’s out, birds are chirping and sleeves are getting shorter… It’s no secret we’re in the midst of spring, and summer’s just inches away. More importantly, the season of music festivals will soon be up and running. Music festivals are always a holiday favorite as they’re unforgettable times, spent in good company seeing your favorite musicians perform live. If you’re wanting to attend a festival, there’s an entire buffet of options catering to different genres, locations, atmospheres, and so on. Here’s just a sprinkling of festivals that might catch your eye (and ears).
- Sziget Festival
Imagine an entire island in the Danube river by the heart of Budapest, dedicated to music, performing arts and the best Hungary has to offer for an entire week. That’s ‘Sziget’. The Óbuda Island, dubbed as the Island of Freedom, unites a melting pot of over 100 nationalities and a star spangled line up, with the likes of the Foo Fighters, Florence + the Machine, Post Malone and Ed Sheeran. Having started as a bohemian student event 25 years ago, Sziget now welcomes a total of 496,000 ‘szitizens’, earning it’s label as the European Burning Man.
- Glastonbury
This festival is one for the books. If camping out in tents, dancing in raincoats and wellies to the most legendary names in music imaginable is up your alley, look no further. The once simple dairy farmer land in Somerset, is now the larger-than-life spectacle we know today. Glastonbury breaks down genre boundaries and has graced its audience with icons across the whole musical spectrum since the 70s. It’s iconic Pyramid stage has witnessed the prime of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Beyoncé, Dolly Parton, The Rolling Stones, Muse, Jay-Z – just to name a few. Unfortunately, if you’re feeling tempted in going, your luck ran out half an hour after tickets were released in October.
- Tomorrowland
With a name like ‘Tomorrowland’, you’d imagine this festival to be like the free-spirited island from Peter Pan. And it’s exactly that. Famed for its elaborate stage design, fairytale-like scenery and attractions, Tomorrowland is the mecca of EDM, house and techno. The Chainsmokers, the late Avicii, Martin Solveig, DJ Snake, Armin van Buuren and Martin Garrix are just the tip of the iceberg of Tomorrowland’s acclaimed roster. Around 400,000 people unite in this Belgian woodland paradise and fully dive into the annual theatrical themes. For the festival’s 15th anniversary, this year’s theme is The Book of Wisdom, The Return – a resurrection of the fan-favorite 2012 theme.
- Hideout
The archetype of “party yachts, beach concerts, and pool parties in bedazzled bikinis” is brought to life at Hideout. The Croatian electronic festival is basically a four day long party, stretched across five beachfronts at the Zrce coast. By day, attendants soak up the sun on the flour-white shores or live it up at pool parties like that scene from the Wolf of Wall Street. Then by night, they dance till they drop to DJ performances like Disclosure, Latmun, Solardo, Pendulum and Jax Jones.
- Wireless
Why travel abroad, risk getting sunburnt and camp in the mud when you can do it all in the center of London? Scratch off the capital’s polished clean-cut surface and you’ll get to the rich, edgy core of street, urban grime. Showcasing this wealth of culture is Wireless’ goal and priority. So go on and grab your Oyster card, head on over to Finsbury Park, and show up to see Cardi B, Migos, Travis Scott, A$AP Rocky and Future in the English concrete jungle.
