Croatia Diaries: Sonus

We’ve been on Zrce Beach for over a month. We’ve witnessed critically-sausage-heavy boat parties, we’ve witnessed mindblowingly-girl-heavy techno parties. We’ve got drunk with locals. We’ve discovered a secret beach and a secret town. Most significant of all however, we’ve witnessed three very different festivals, on exactly the same location. Brit-gamechanger Hideout. Italian stormer Barrakud and now, German late entry Sonus. The latter was in effect the final fling of Zrce’s season – the beach winds down significantly come September.

Generally regarded as “Germany’s Hideout” there are certainly similarities between Britain’s Deep-House Meets Deep Sunburn odyssey and the German’s response. Both have built their Croatian chapters off the back of hugely successful native fixtures – The Warehouse Project in Hideout’s case; Timewarp Mannheim for Sonus. That latter point should raise many an unshowered hair on a techno tourist’s neck. Timewarp is one of the longest running, most successful one-dayers of all time – with DJs and punters alike going misty eyed when recounting how their own personal 24hrs down the rabbit hole went. Having listened to many a wasted soul on smoking terraces in London wax religious on the Horological Hi Hat Adventure, we were keen to see what the Bavarian promoters’ Croatian chapter looked like. Here’s what we found.

This Is Bigger Than Hideout

Sonus has, in just two years, all but eclipsed Hideout festival. With Kalypso and Papaya already booked out, the organisers had to open Zrce’s other superclub Aquarius at short notice to accommodate the fact that ticket sales had doubled since last year to over 11,000 people. Not that this caused any real headaches down on the floor. At the risk of hauling up stereotypes, the entire festival was pulled off with the kind of slick efficiency you’d expect from promoters of one of the world’s most successful parties for over a decade. Especially if they’re German. There. We did it. 

The Crowd Were More International

Hideout’s marketing and Brit-heavy line-up was designed and built for a UK crowd – and that it was. Barrakud, with installments across native Italy, was similarly, an Italo-centric workout. For sure, there was no shortage of Germans at Sonus, but the crowd were strikingly international. We hit the impromptu 7am beach drinking sessions with Italians, with canadians, with Spaniards, with Brits, with Croatians, with a few Canadians. Sonus was one of the most comfortably diverse crowds we’ve encountered on Zrce – and this without doubt added to the good feelings down on the main floors night on night. 

ThIs Was Flawless

Festivals, objectively speaking, are a logistical nightmare. Take several thousand very drunk people, take confined spaces, take literally truck loads of worryingly expense, fragile equipment, take an artist roster of individuals flying in from all over the world. Things often go wrong. Whether it’s equipment that goes faulty, or in the case of Tomorrowland via David Guetta, artists that go faulty, there’s often something that gets a visit from the f*ck up fairy. Here, however, this simply didn’t happen. Even with a big venue and line-up shift up, everything came off without a hitch. We spent a fair bit of time backstage, where, in place of the usual sea of overtired cameramen, overly tactile DJs and overly wasted PR interns, there was an air of walkie-talkie soundtracked efficient calm. This wasn’t a festival, this was a machine.

The Boat Parties Were Louder

Here’s a neat fact. Almost every single festival in Croatia has boat parties as integral to their ethos. Even the smallest beach-bangers like SMS run out several, and Hideout topped it with twenty four. But, in reality, just five boats run the entire scene here – travelling from festival to festival. Croatia’s flagship is called Champagne. A veteran of almost every single festival here, it was substantially beefed up for Sonus’ boat parties. A several kilowatt soundsystem, a full scale mixing desk and a six CDJ, two mixer arrangement – enough to make most Superclub room 2’s blush. When Shonky and Dan Ghenacia put it through it’s paces at a boat party peppered with lightning strikes all around, it felt like the end of the world, in a far sexier, un-Keanu-Reeves-esque way.

As Expected, Apollonia Smashed It 

They’re everyone’s favourite DJs right now, and they absolutely killed it. Playing back-to-back-to-back in a laid back, rolling, sexy is-it-house-is-it-techno-is-it-just-really-French way in the fittingly alternate, sexy, dark beach venue of Kalypso.

The Martinez Brothers Got Techy

The divisive duo clearly got into the general vibe of Sonus – blending their signature, NY-tinged housey style – complete with props including straight-arming vodka and being groped at various times by a collection of painfully good looking girls on stage for that exact purpose, with a straight up, jacked tech-house offering that kept Aquarius going straight into dawn with ease. 

Joseph Capriati Dominated The Pool Parties

The emotional Italian was the fixture at Sonus’ pool parties. Characteristically a bit more laid back than Hideout and Barrakud’s equivalents, Joseph’s Papaya pool party was one of the most rammed sessions we’ve seen on Zrce all summer. It may have been peak-day sunshine, but Capriati showed no interest in keeping things light – jumping onto stage in usual uniform of all-black including leather boots, and proceeded with an unabashed, pitched down vocals, pitched up hit-hats block of sound that had a sweaty crowd in heated hysteria for several hours. 

It’s time to put the Girls Don’t Like Techno urban legend to rest.

It’s a mostly UK thing, but there are still pockets of people who are of the thinking that ‘Girls Dont’ Like Techno’. It’s a genuine issue in a couple of UK locations – promoters are unwilling to risk techno nights on the above mantra, and we get house, so much, so much house. Which is great, but for those of us who miss the ‘4 hours, no vocal’ refreshingly stripped back sound, it can cause frustration. With that in mind, it should be noted that Capriati’s pool party was if anything majority impossibly hot, Italian girls. Take note – UK.

It’s only going to get bigger, but the crowd will keep it sweet.

Every sweaty, coming up, coming down, drunk, hungover clubber we met at the boat parties, pool parties, pre-drinks, after parties was utterly adamant they’d be back next year. Given the sheer pace at which Sonus has blown up, it can be presumed with a degree of accuracy that next year will be substantially bigger again. However, whilst many a festival has had a challenge at this stage of overheating – whether by expanding too quickly at the loss of quality, or for want of a better phrase, attracting legions of lads-on-tour and white-girl-wasted cases, Sonus’ strikingly diverse line-up will, we think, protect it from death-by-clique.

Timewarp’s promoters are now launching in Utrecht.

Timewarp is one of the most successful one-dayers of all time. Their Sonus festival offshoot proves they can export and shift-up the festival model abroad too. Now, they’ve just announced that their launching TimeWarp Utrecht this December, with tickets on sale now. We’re going, are you?

So ends our 2014 on Zrce Beach. Every single one of the five festivals we did here had it’s massive perks, but for sheer what-it-says-on-the-tin brilliant delivery, we gotta hand this to the Germans. Sonus was basically flawless. We’ll see you there in 2015!