Listen up, music fans! Get the fun started earlier this year and attend one of our 13 favourite European music festivals for the spring season.
Lost & Found – Malta
Loving the crowd at Lost & Found Festival © Lost & Found Festival
Building on the momentum of last year’s hugely successful inaugural event, Lost & Found Festival returns to the blissful island of Malta for another year of dance bangers, boat parties and all-night raves – only BIGGER.
Curated by the prodigious BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, the festival draws the biggest names in contemporary club culture to keep the 4-day party going strong. Grab your sunscreen, a pair of shades and a pool float, and head for this Mediterranean bash.
When: March 31 – April 3
Headliners: Annie Mac, Disclosure, Mark Ronson B2B Hudson Mohawke
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Malta with momondo, and visit Festicket.com to book your festival tickets now!
Rewire – The Hague, The Netherlands
Danish band Efterklang wow the crowd at Rewire © Pieter Kers
The rough assemblage feel to The Hague’s Rewire Festival programme shouldn’t work, but it does: with indie rock bands going back-to-back with cosmic jazz outfits, neo-classical orchestras, and wonky-pop troubadours, all hosted in a range of inner city venues.
With such a vast array of sounds reverberating through the city, you’d easily forget that you are embracing culture-on-the-fringes in one of the world’s most significant, pencil-pushing administration hubs. Rather than neutering the energy surrounding the festival, the juxtapositional locale only feeds into the adventurous charm of Rewire – the festival that rebels from within!
When: April 1-3
Headliners: Animal Collective, Battles, Ben UFO
Convinced? Find cheap flights to nearby Amsterdam with momondo, and visit Festicket.com to book your festival tickets now!
Snowbombing – Mayrhofen, Austria
DJing from the piste-side at Snowbombing © Snowbombing
Love music? Love snowboarding? Then, you need Snowbombing in your life, which has been perfectly combining the two since 2000.
With pistes ranging from green to black, and a mix of electronic DJs and indie live acts, there really is something for everyone. Better still, festival organisers make the most of lush west Austrian surroundings, with concerts and DJ sets held in the strangest of places, from forest clearings to alpine farmsteads and an igloo village.
When: April 4-9
Headliners: The Prodigy, Andy C, Fatboy Slim
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Mayrhofen with momondo, and visit Festicket.com to book your festival tickets now!
Groezrock – Meerhout, Belgium
Turbonegro wow the crowd at Groezrock © Achim Raschka
If the thought of spending a brisk spring weekend bopping around in a mosh pit sounds like your idea of a good time, then sign yourself up for Groezrock.
This year, an expected 40,000 music fans are set to seize the quaint village of Meerhout in the Belgian province of Antwerp, all in celebration of “heavy music”. From emo to screamo, hardcore to ska, the lineup is an embarrassment of punk rock riches, and the atmosphere is charged. Despite its growing popularity, Groezrock sticks to its local, grassroots mentality as a friendly, mohawk-coaxing cradle for rock’s most boisterous misfits.
When: April 29-30
Headliners: Rancid, Hatebreed, Sum 41
Convinced? Find cheap flights to nearby Antwerp with momondo
Nuits Sonores – Lyon, France
An audio-visual bonanza at Nuits Sonores © Brice Robert
If you happen to be visiting France’s second city during the start of May, chances are you won’t be able avoid to Nuits Sonores.
This pioneering multi-disclipinary festival dominates Lyon, swooping in to 40 of its public spaces, from a former light bulb factory to the Musée des Confluences science institute, and handing them over to the most exciting names in electronic music and visual arts.
Best of all, this is no uber-elitist private party; in fact, it’s anything but. With 80,000 attendees every year, the festival’s mission statement is to encourage conversation and curiosity. The inclusive vibe and out-of-the-box programming make Nuits Sonores a culture vulture’s playground.
When: May 4-8
Headliners: Motor City Drum Ensemble, Laurent Garnier, Seth Troxler
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Lyon with momondo, and visit Festicket.com to book your festival tickets now!
XJAZZ – Berlin, Germany
Dim the lights, it’s take for XJAZZ © Ulla C. Binder
One of Europe’s most productive musical hubs, it’s no wonder that Berlin is leading the way with pushing the boundaries of “jazz” to great new heights. Celebrating this musical experimentation is the fresh and fun festival enterprise XJAZZ.
With events held in five fantastic venues in Kreuzberg, XJAZZ is all about celebrating international legends of the experimental jazz game on the one hand, and highlighting the local, genre-pushing talent on the other. Around 70% of each year’s lineup is dominated by German-based acts – a rarity in the country – outlining just how ahead of the curve Berlin’s jazz scene is. Don’t miss it!
When: May 5-8
Headliners: Cymande, Nightmares on Wax, Pantha Du Prince
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Berlin with momondo
Festival SOS 4.8 – Murcia, Spain
Midnight fun at SOS 4.8 © josemanuelerre
Kicking the May music festival season into gear, SOS 4.8 cranks it up to 11. Like a mini-Bennicassim, the festival offers a diverse pop programme offering up the stage for hot international superstars and local divas. A mini-Bennicassim, almost two months before the big event!
Held in the sleepy university city of Murcia in southern Spain, the start of May sees the sun shining and temperatures rising, making this hot festival spot perfect for those that love to pitch a tent and camp.
When: May 7-8
Headliners: Manic Street Preachers, Mew, Chvrches
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Murcia with momondo
The Great Escape – Brighton, UK
Music fans gather to watch ‘the next big thing’ perform at The Great Escape
The Great Escape – the clue is in the name. Held in the bohemian seaside town of Brighton (a 30-minute train ride from London’s Gatwick Airport), thousands of music fans vacate the humdrum of the 9-to-5 to get lost in the music.
And, oh, what music! Every year, the dedicated team behind The Great Escape deliver a line-up showcasing the best in new music, with 450 genre-spanning acts performing in 30+ local venues, from the regal Brighton Dome to the backroom of a local pub after closing hours. The festival also hosts a prestigious industry convention, featuring panel debates, interviews and keynote speeches from industry bigwigs and music tastemakers.
Looking for the next big thing in 2017? Visit The Great Escape and you might just see them a year early.
When: May 19-21
Headliners: Band of Skulls, Mystery Jets, Michael Kiwanuka
Convinced? Find a cheap flight to nearby London
CLICK Festival – Helsingør, Denmark
Reaching for the stars at Denmark’s CLICK Festival. © Mathias Vejerslev/CLICK festival
One for the chin-stroking, but fun-loving musos, CLICK is a festival sent straight from the future.
Coming into its sixth year, it’s the place where international purveyors of performance art, science and technology come together to host production workshops and seminars, plus unforgettable, one-night-only productions.
Hosted in Helsingør’s Kulturværftet (The Culture Yard) – and just a 45-minute train ride from inner city Copenhagen – attending CLICK also gives punters the chance to explore Danish history, with the Maritime Museum and Kronborg, aka Hamlet’s castle, within walking distance.
When: May 20-22
Headliner: Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Copenhagen with momondo
Bergen International Festival – Bergen, Norway
Refined sounds at the Bergen International Festival © Thor Moeller
If the thought of loud rock music and a muddied festival ground doesn’t tickle your fancy, then head north for the Bergen International Festival.
Suave and sophisticated, but not stuffy, this multi-disciplinary festival takes the antiquated realms of ballet, opera, folk and classical music, and gives them a new-found sense of cool, appealing to punters of all ages and interests. The festival really does live up to its name, touting across the world to find the finest talent, and bringing them together for a programme boasting 250 concerts over a compact 15 days, all hosted in Norway’s second city.
If you prefer your concert venues dark and dingy, and your music a little more smooth, Bergen’s Nattjazz festival runs concurrently in the “city between seven mountains”.
When: May 25 – June 8
Headliners: Judy Collins, Angélique Kidjo, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Bergen with momondo
Life in Color – Izmir, Turkey
Paint yourself silly at Izmir’s Life in Color. © Rutger Geerling/rudgr.com
Paint cannons at the ready – Izmir’s one-day Life in Color spectacular is back with a bang. This rowdy EDM party showers Turkey’s rave subculture with the best international DJs, flexuous stage performers and thousands of gallons of neon paint.
If it all sounds silly, don’t worry, it is. But that doesn’t stop it from being fun. Once the paint dries and the party comes to an end, wash yourself off with a dip in the Aegean Sea before venturing into the town centre’s Kemeralti bazaar, where you can recharge on Turkish coffee and baklava, and flaunt your bartering skills while purchasing an ancient Turkish trinket as a souvenir.
When: May 28
Headliners: W&W, Ummet Ozcan
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Izmir with momondo, and visit Festicket.com to book your festival tickets now!
NOS Primavera Sound – Porto, Portugal
Lounging bubble fun at Porto’s NOS Primavera Sound © Hugo Ima
Launched in 2012 as the smaller Portuguese side-project to Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, this Porto party is no baby. Sure, it will always stand in the shadows of its huge Iberian counterpart, but this fun weekender manages to steal a big handful of its best acts, plus some great local talent (both in terms of music and winemaking), and delivers it to indie music lovers for half the price.
Beyond the festival frolics, it’s the perfect opportunity to explore one of the most architecturally rich and romantic metropolises in all of Southern Europe.
When: June 9-11
Headliners: Sigur Rós, Animal Collective, PJ Harvey
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Porto with momondo, and visit Festicket.com to book your festival tickets now!
Sideways – Helsinki, Finland
Sideways © Vilma Timonen
With the storming success of Helsinki’s Flow Festival every August, it was just a matter of time before a new-fest-on-the-block turned up to whet the appetite of Finland’s “Indie Cindys”.
Rather than competing with Flow’s audience, the freshly launched Sideways Festival occurs two months earlier, just before the summer season officially starts, in one of the capital’s culinary hotspots, The Abattoir. With a small audience capacity of 12,000 people, Sideways is small enough to feel authentically Finnish – with great street food and drinks from nearby restaurants, plus local bands – while still being big enough to draw in prominent international figures from the Indie world. Last year also offered up record-stalls for avid collectors, and a retro arcade hall.
Be quick! Tickets for last year’s Sideways Festival debut sold out way ahead of schedule. Earn yourself some cool points and get yourself to this new festival before the rest of hipsterdom takes heed.
When: June 17-18
Headliners: PJ Harvey, Explosions in the Sky, Flatbush Zombies
Convinced? Find cheap flights to Helsinki with momondo
