Culture
9 Small Music Festivals To Attend This Summer
Music festival season is upon us. But instead of heading to the same big-name festivals again this year, why not try one of these more intimate events on for size?
Time to dust off the wellies, denim hotpants and band shirts, draw up a list of must-see live acts, and book the music adventure of the summer. In the northern hemisphere, festival season is upon us. The biggest live music extravaganzas are easy to find, but sniffing out the worthwhile small festivals off the beaten track is a more challenging task. For those who value intimate performances over bombastic stage productions, immersive experiences over trending social media hashtags, and community spirit over giant crowds, these festivals might just be the ticket. (And just in case those tickets are already sold out, don’t despair: it can be surprisingly easy to pick up last-minute returns closer to the date.)
Worldwide Festival
Sète, France
This grown-up festival blasts eclectic sounds from – as the name suggests – all over the world, with a diverse line-up featuring jazz-infused, danceable music curated by the genre-bending DJ, broadcaster and event founder Gilles Peterson. Held each year in a picturesque fishing town in the south of France, Worldwide Festival offers a chilled-out festival experience with locations on the beach and across the old town. Most of the evening performances are held in an intimate amphitheatre overlooking the ocean. If you like the music on Peterson’s unique Worldwide radio shows, you’ll love hearing it live, on the Mediterranean, accompanied by the unofficial festival tipple: Red Bull and Rosé all day.
Joshua Tree Music Festival
Joshua Tree, California, USA
Joshua Tree National Park attracts artsy, alternative and esoteric crowds year-round. The eponymous festival, held just outside the park, draws in more of the same twice a year for a long weekend of “music, community, movement, art and mindfulness” under the desert sun. Of course, these days any festival worth its spiritual salt offers yoga sessions, at the very least. JTMF sees your yoga and raises you a sanctuary, a healing oasis, a positive vibration station and an astro mojo dojo. Suffice it to say: in addition to the music, at this festival you can also tune into your inner peace.
[Photo courtesy of Joshua Tree Music Festival © Amandala Photography]
Green Man Music
Brecon Beacons, Wales
This festival isn’t just green by name. Inspired by the mythical Green Man, a symbol of nature’s rebirth in spring, it is beautifully situated on the historic Glanusk Estate within Brecon Beacons National Park. Headliners like Underworld and TV on the Radio perform in front of a lush mountain backdrop facing a natural amphitheatre. Other stages and areas also offer ample shade and abundant vegetation. The festival’s sustainability plan includes free drinking water refills, local beverages at the bar, compost toilets, as well as hydrogen- and solar-powered stages. With the Settlement, a campsite that opens the Monday before the festival, revellers are encouraged to take it slow and expand the festival visit into a week-long exploration of the surrounding Welsh countryside.
[Image courtesy of Green Man Music © Kirsty McLachlan]
Haldern Pop Festival
Haldern, Germany
This small festival with a big reputation could have become a victim of its own success. Staged each year since 1984 (with the exception of an at-home streaming event in 2020) in the town of Haldern in the Lower Rhine Valley, it has hosted big-name headliners like Muse, Paul Weller and Patti Smith alongside indie acts and local heroes. The crowd size is restricted to 7,000, since the organisers have ruled out a change of location. Instead, they have launched a sister festival, Kaltern Pop, which takes place in sunny South Tyrol each autumn.
[Image courtesy of Haldern Pop Festival © Stefan Daub]
Limbo Festival
Lucca, Italy
Sometimes “boutique” can also mean “bougie”: this intimate festival takes place on a lush private resort in Tuscany, which offers a variety of accommodation options nestled within hilly terrain traversed by hiking trails opening to stunning views of the surrounding countryside. Depending on your budget and preferences, you can book a hotel or glamping package, check into a chalet with friends, or bring your own camper. The electronic music line-up is enhanced by outdoor activities like hiking, forest bathing and even an alpaca walk. Meals in the on-site restaurants are accompanied by live music and DJs.
Lighthouse Festival
Tar, Croatia
What started as the tiniest of micro-festivals – with just a few hundred guests, organised by a team from the Vienna club scene in a hotel and apartment complex on a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea – has since grown in every way, without getting too big. Slowly but surely, the event has expanded its line-up (adding indie and hip-hop to its electronic acts), its target audience (advertising outside German-speaking countries and collaborating with clubs from other cities), and its ticketing practices (you no longer need an invite code to purchase a festival pass). Events in South Africa, Zanzibar and a winter edition in the Austrian Alps have also been added to the portfolio.
Butik Festival
Tolmin, Slovenia
This boutique electronic music festival earned a loyal following quickly after its launch in 2019. The picturesque festival site in the Julian Alps, at the confluence of two rivers, is surrounded by nature, yet easily accessible. Along with several other festivals that take place on the same site, the organisers have vowed to preserve the natural surroundings and work with the local community to ensure music fans will continue to be welcomed here. Butik has also teamed up with Lighthouse Festival for a winter edition on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar.
Acoustic Lakeside
Sonnegger See, Austria
This laid-back festival is entirely staffed by volunteers, and its organisers just won a court case confirming the event’s non-profit status. The festival site on the edge of a lake in rural Carinthia is impossibly idyllic; low-fi acoustic sets by international indie bands and local heroes add to the feeling of intimacy enabled by the event’s modest scale. Unlike the party vibes at other festivals, here you’re more likely to find a relaxed atmosphere, a sense of reverence and perhaps a more intense focus on the music and the artists than elsewhere.
[Image courtesy of Acoustic Lakeside © Bernhard Schindler]
Meadows in the Mountains
Polkovnik Serafimovo, Bulgaria
One of the most surreal festival experiences is the joy of greeting the dawning sun after dancing the night away under the open sky. Place that sunrise in an idyllic mountaintop location, with a sea of clouds at your feet, and you’re halfway to understanding the appeal of Meadows in the Mountains. The 2024 event was cancelled at the last minute, but it is scheduled again for 2025. Early bird tickets sold out in October, without a single act or other detail confirmed. Those who have bought in or are holding tickets for the postponed 2024 edition are now hoping that the revival can once again capture the same magic.
[Image at the top courtesy of Green Man Music © Oliver Chapman]
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