Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals
Slide Nr 1Music festivals are often too dry (dehydrating dust storms that leave you gasping for water) or too wet (stomping through puddles and rolling in the mud until the novelty of perpetual dampness wears off). So why not visit one of these floating festivities, featuring just the right amount of water?
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 2Kaljakellunta. Vantaa, Finland. July or August. The name of this event tells you pretty much all you need to know, but in case your Finnish isn’t up to scratch: Kaljakellunta translates to “beer floating” and sees thousands of revellers floating down the Kerava or Vantaa rivers near Helsinki (while drinking beer). Although there are no official organisers and the event is barely tolerated by local authorities, it has been going – and growing – for 20 years. [Photo: kaljakellunta.org]
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 4Theatron and ImPark. Munich, Germany. August. What may look like two festivals in one is actually two concurrent events that happen to complement each other nicely. The long-running Theatron music festival has in recent years been joined by the ImPark family festival. The two events bleed into each other alongside the small artificial lake in Munich’s Olympic Park. The latter offers, amongst other attractions, a wakeboard cableway and SUP rentals; the former contributes the background music, with local bands playing daily.
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 5Koningsdag. Amsterdam, Netherlands. April. On King’s Day (previously known as Queen’s Day, until Queen Beatrix abdicated in 2013), the Dutch honour their current regent by decking out the entire country in oranje, the colour of the royal family. In Amsterdam, the canals are awash with every possible vessel in town, turning the waterways into one giant orange party. [Photo: Edwin van Eis]
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 6Up the Creek Festival. Swellendam, South Africa. January. Officially known as Jägermeister presents Up the Creek, this festival’s location on the banks of the Breede River is a blessing when bands perform during one of the hottest months of the year in an inland region with notoriously hot and dry summer weather. Festivalgoers are free to take a dip any time, but some choose to watch performances from lilos, drifting between riverside bars and the floating stage until it’s finally cool enough to leave the water. [Photo: Belia Oh]
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 7Patonga Blues Across the Bay. Patonga, New South Wales, Australia. November. Once again, it’s all right there in the name. This blues festival takes place across the bay from Patonga. Access is by ferry from the small seaside village on the Central Coast, just over an hour north of Sydney. The Broken Bay Sport and Recreation Centre that hosts the event is located on an island at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, just before it joins the Tasman Sea, offering ample swimming opportunities.
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 8Beer Can Regatta. Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. July. This wacky regatta is one of those weird and wonderful Aussie traditions embraced by locals and visitors alike. Darwinites spend weeks and months collecting cans (or, as some will brag, putting in the hard work to empty vast quantities of cans in time for the event), then build more or less seaworthy vessels out of them. Usually less. Hilarity ensues.
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 9Riverboats Music Festival. Echuca-Moama, Victoria, Australia. February. The name of this festival refers to the historic paddle steamers that occasionally drift past the site on the banks of the Murray River. In addition to the regular performances on dry land, several so-called “festival sideshows” take place aboard one such paddle steamer.
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 11Songkran. Chiang Mai, Thailand. April. The Thai New Year is celebrated with a splash, as locals and visitors wash away the sins of the year gone by with an epic water fight. You may get wet in a canal, river or on a beach, but you could also get drenched just walking down the street, as absolutely everyone is armed with water pistols, super soakers, or plain old-fashioned buckets of water at all times. This being a NYE party, the watery merriment is also accompanied by music. Similar celebrations are found across the country, but Chiang Mai is the place to be. [Photo: Wyndham Hollis/Flickr]
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 12DriftJam. Lake Murray, South Carolina, USA. June. Billing itself as “the world’s largest floating music festival”, DriftJam certainly has a large festival venue. Bands play on a floating stage off an island in one of the largest man-made lakes in the United States. It can only be accessed by water, so the audience arrives on boats, pool toys and rubber dinghies. It’s completely free of charge, but asks for contributions to a charity supporting US veterans.
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 13Rockin’ the River. Fort Worth, Texas, USA. July-August. This series of one-day festivals, running each Saturday from the first weekend in July until the first weekend in August on the Trinity River, gives Texans the chance to escape the summer heat and float in the water while watching five bands perform, before wrapping up a chilled-out day with a fireworks display.
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 15Float Fest. San Marcos, Texas, USA. July. In case you didn’t know, Texas gets hot in summer. And in case you hadn’t noticed, Texans like to beat the heat by tubing down a river, preferably drink in hand and music in ear. At this festival near college town San Marcos, campers float to their sites on the river and get to cool down before, after and between gigs. The concerts themselves take place on the festival grounds next to, but sadly not actually on or in, the river. [Photo: Chad Wadsworth]
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 16Bayou Boogaloo. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. May. New Orleans is usually on travel bucket lists for its Mardi Gras, but why not visit for a less hectic and overrun, but altogether more local affair? Each year, the Bayou St. John (a name referring both to the neighbourhood and the body of water) hosts a family-friendly festival offering three days of local music, food and arts and crafts. It’s pretty much the best bits of your New Orleans bucket list item, minus the crowds, plus a chance to paddle on the Bayou. [Photo: Will Gurley/Flickr]
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Events
Rollin’ On The River: 15 Fun Floating Festivals.
Slide Nr 17Music Festival Cruises. Global. They may not quite be in keeping with the spirit of this list, but if you love water and music, and appreciate a more comfortable festival experience, there’s probably a music festival cruise out there that’s perfect for you. From Blues to Electronic Dance Music, Rock to Hip Hop, Opera to Musicals, there’s a floating festival to suit every taste. [Photo by Chris Bradshaw, courtesy of Shiprocked]
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