Wish you were here?
Forty years ago, if you’d showed up to a music festival, the coat you were wearing would also have served as your sleeping bag. And your tent.
But times change and the festival experience has had to change too. Forget about glamping – Eamonn Forde takes a tongue-in-cheek look at ten of the most eye-popping VIP package choices on the market…
Name: Secret Solstice
Location: Iceland
Price: US$1 million (€882,000) for six people
Headliners Radiohead may have pioneered the pay-what-you-want model, but the price here is non-negotiable. For that wallet-trembling price you get all manner of things – starting with “business jet transport from anywhere on Earth” (return, luckily) on a Gulfstream G300 “or similar”, two private concerts, and access to ultra-VIP areas, if mixing with the hoi polloi is too much to bear. There’s also access to shows in a glacier (a glacier!) and a volcano (a volcano!) and helicopter trips. You do get a lot for your money and if you’ve ever tried to buy a round of drinks in Reykjavik, suddenly $1m doesn’t seem that expensive.
Name: Desert Trip
Location: Indio, California, US
Price: $10,000 (€8,820) for two people
The line-up is not what you’d call underwhelming (the Rolling Stones, Dylan, The Who, Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Roger Waters), so at a once-in-a-lifetime festival, you can’t be expected to rough it. For your ten grand, you get to sleep in an exclusive area in a Shikar tent that has actual beds and, incredibly, air conditioning. While waiting for the artists to get out of their bath chairs, you can go to cocktail and craft beer tasting sessions and then slump, content, into outdoor chairs to listen to the songs that defined the counterculture, aimed as they were at the freaks and misfits who railed against pernicious mainstream cooption. Oh…
Read the rest of this feature in issue 66 of IQ
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Visit five islands in seven days at new Croatian festival Wave Week
A new dance music event in Croatia will offer festivalgoers the chance to visit five Mediterranean islands in the space of a week.
Wave Week, promoted by London-based Croatia Wave Ltd, will transport 250 dance music fans on 40 yachts across seven different coastal venues from 13 to 20 August. Performers announced so far include Simian Mobile Disco, Crazy P, Clive Henry, Inxec, Garry Todd, Krywald & Farrer, Alex Ferrer, Mike Gill and Tamor Zadeh.
The flotilla’s route will start and finish in Split and split and also take in venues in Supertar, Makarska, Paklinksi Islands, Vis and Hvar. The yachts – the cheapest of which, the six-person Grand Soleil 40, will set back revellers £3,364.51 – will be equipped with toilets, showers and wi-fi and, in addition to the music, will afford festivalgoers the chance to visit “the most unique and exceptional restaurants, clubs and bars along the way, from beach barbecues to sit-down supper clubs – a new experience is to be had every single day”.
Mike Gill, Wave Week’s festival director, comments: “We are incredibly excited to announce Wave Week. Croatia has become such an iconic hub for music festivals and by bringing together music, travel and culture, we have curated a very special experience for those who are looking for more out of their festival experience.”