With a little bit of energy and imagination, you can turn a visit to a music festival into a total immersive vacation. Whether you want to listen to EDM stars in the heart of Belgium, rock the night away in Southern California, or discover your new favourite band in a Serbian castle, there’s a music festival for fans of every genre and every type of traveller. Hit one of these music festivals for a long weekend or tack on a day or two to your trip to wander the streets of the unique areas where they are held. Skyscanner will help you find the cheapest flights to get there from Canada. And to help you get to the music, here are eight music festivals that are worth the trip.
Best Music Festivals: Coachella
Every April, curious eyes turn toward the California desert. The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival transforms the Empire Polo Club in Indio into a full-blown scene. It’s arguably one of the most popular music festivals in the world. Coachella takes place over two consecutive weekends and continues its run as the first music festival of the year with jaw-dropping line-ups of spectacular headliners. Those acts top off three days of incredible music, art, and merry-making under the desert sun.
You may camp on the festival grounds or book a room at one of the local resorts that run buses to the sites. To make it a real Southern California vacation, tack on a few days before the music festival to kick back in Palm Springs or visit nearby Joshua Tree National Park.
Tomorrowland, Boom, Belgium
A huge electronic music festival, Tomorrowland has built a reputation in the world of music strong enough to the point of overshadowing the popular Ultra or the Amsterdam Dance Event. More than 360 DJs punctuate the dancing and nodding of 185,000 visitors, most of whom choose to sleep at the Dreamville campsite. The festival mobilizes an entire terminal at the airport, taken over by its attendees.
Tomorrowland is more than just a music festival. It is an adult playground with an entire theatrical production. It is well known for its incredible lineup, mind-blowing sets, over the top magical scenery and the incredible firework and laser shows.
Exit, Novi Sad, Serbia
Exit, considered as the best major European festival at last year’s EU Festival Wars, takes place at the Petrovaradin Fortress, located on the right bank of the river Danube in Novi Sad. It is considered one of the most beautiful European medieval fortresses.
Exit is a sprawling mass of glowing tunnels and cavernous moat beds set up as stages (there are 20 in all) playing everything from dance and pop to heavy metal and reggae. The location also offers superb acoustics, allowing different types of events to take place one next to the other at the same time, without any sound interference.
Thanks to the nighttime party atmosphere, Exit is one of those music festivals where it’s easy to fully immerse yourself in this slightly surreal place and get lost in the incredible surroundings, where a new discovery is tucked into every available nook and cranny.
Fuji Rock Festival, Yuzawa, Japan
The Fuji Rock Festival not only delivers music from over 200 local and international artists but the event provides insanely beautiful scenery. A true nature lover’s event, the Fuji Rock Festival offers plenty of opportunities to camp out in a good old-fashioned tent and practice communing with the natural world.
The festival site sits in the middle of flowing streams and hills. Visitors can even take a gondola lift to the top of the mountain overlooking the entire festival.
Although it’s billed as a rock festival and was started as such in 2005, Fuji has grown to accommodate a number of cross-genre acts. The festival offers a total of seven stages. The green stage, the largest one, has a capacity of 50,000, so expect a lot of bodies. The grounds also double as a ski resort, and Fuji Rock has more than 25 individual food stations boasting international cuisine of all types.
Austin City Limits, Austin, Texas
The Austin City Limits Music Festival is an annual music festival held in Zilker Park, in Austin, Texas on two consecutive three-day weekends. Inspired by the PBS music series of the same name, the festival is produced by the same company which also produces Lollapalooza in Chicago.
The ACL Music Festival has eight stages where musical groups from genres including rock, indie, country, folk, electronic and hip-hop perform for fans. Approximately 450,000 people attend the festival each year. In addition to the music performances, there are food and drinks, an art market, a kids area for families, and other activities for attendees.
Founded in 2002, the festival began as a one-weekend event and remained as such through the 2012 version. On August 16, 2012, Austin City Council members voted unanimously to allow the Austin City Limits Music Festival to expand to two consecutive weekends beginning in 2013.
Voodoo Music + Arts Experiences, New Orleans
Since its 1999 Halloween weekend debut, the annual event has become a Halloween tradition to music fans, both locally and to others who travel from all around the world. Throughout Voodoo’s run, more than one million festival goers have gathered to see performances from thousands of artists to one of the most colourful music festivals in the United States.
Voodoo’s annual line-up traditionally features top-tier and innovative artists from a variety of musical genres. There are six distinct stages within the festival’s landscape designed to uniquely showcase different sides of the personality of New Orleans: “Le Flambeau” features music and sounds consistent with the style of The Big Easy; “Le Ritual” features more mainstream music; and finally “Le Carnival” features indie bands, burlesque and circus acts.
Primavera Sound, Barcelona
Primavera Sound launched in 2001 and has since grown from a humble DIY effort to a giant festival that has seen some of contemporary music’s most iconic names cross the stage. Nowadays, the four-day event draws more than 200,000 visitors to 20 different stages where over 250 acts keep a song in the air from sunrise to sundown.
Aspiring foodies and culture buffs will also have plenty to uncover should they choose to peruse Barcelona’s historic streets, eateries, markets and cultural centres.
Sziget, Budapest, Hungary
Sziget, one of Europe’s largest music festivals, takes its name from Óbudai-Sziget, the island in the middle of the Danube, close to Budapest, where the festival is held each year. The seven-day long concert and cultural event something for everyone, with a line-up that spans across genres. Each year, more than 400,000 people travel to participate in this European Woodstock, a favourite with artists.
Under the auspice of art and freedom, the whole island is transformed into a magical place with installations, colourful sculptures and original art projects such as a dragon made of 15,000 bottles and measuring 25 metres long. Budapest is still a relatively inexpensive city to visit in Europe, with so much to see and do.
