Some big names came on the stage of the latest edition of the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, such as Major Lazer, Muse and the Chemical Brothers. They performed “spectacular live shows”, as Lewis Evans described on the Guardian. Evans was happy about the organization of the festival, compared to some English ones: “Everything ran like clockwork and you could guarantee everything would be on time” he said.
Benicàssim Festival, FIB, is located in Spain, where the sun always shines. Festival goers from the UK for instance likes to take the flight and enjoy the summer weather than the usual rain they get on their home island. “Located just over an hour away from Valencia, the festival sits on the Costa Azahar and puts the UK festivals to shame in terms of pure landscape beauty”, wrote Alex Jones on his music blog.
The Spanish sun can make things really hot and sticky in your tent, some people say this heat can make it really hard to sleep, although we think there may also be other factors at play like the pumping beats emanating from the dance tent! Christine Alford experienced this first hand and she gives this tip on Vulture Hound Magazine, which is still relevant today: “When you have set up your tent just cover it in tin foil, making sure there are no gaps and secure the foil with gaffer tape. It is as easy as wrapping a Christmas present. You will get to sleep later, as the shiny tin foil will reflect the worst of the summer sun.”
Besides the weather, Spain is also known as being home to several party towns: Benidorm which Ella Guthrie compares the festival with on her British website, the Summer Festival Guide. She writes that Benicàssim festival has a plus: a lot of music and an international atmosphere. “(…) I felt there were considerably less Spanish goers (and noticeably a lot less Spanish acts) the multicultural vibe is definitely known, and with the gloom of Brexit still hovering over our heads there felt a definite subconscious need for camaraderie, which when you consider the amount of EU flags we saw dotted around and more often than not, wrapped around sleeping people, is a comforting thought”, she said.
She also wrote that from a British tourists point of view, the festival is cheap. The event was located nearb to supermarkets and airports. Many low-cost companies fly to Spain. In Benicàssim you’ll find everything you need to attend the 4 days of intense music. To make things easier, the concert starts only on the evening which leave you plenty of time to wake up from the previous day and generally things have cooled down a bit by then.
Guthrie was impressed by the lineup of the Benicàssim festival, such as Rat Boy, Disclosure and Jess Glyne, that she would definitely come back again.
According to Virtual Festivals, FIB was actually nominated second in the festivals list that offer festival goers the best value for money, with net a saving of £213.01, just behind the Sziget Festival in Hungary.
Even though there are plenty of revelers and the festival isn’t short on atmosphere the festival doesn’t feel overly large. “Moving on to the actual festival – the site isn’t that big, so you can walk from stage to stage easily so don’t panic about missing any performances, you can literally get to the next stage within five minutes!” as Rachel Hyde wrote on her blog about last year edition of the festival.
Naomi Kratz wrote on her own travel blog about her last summer in Spain and the bad adventure she had at the FIB, losing some of her personal items. Though, she did say that she would definitely come back again, “I honestly don’t see why after this I would ever want to pay £££ to go and stand/sleep in a muddy field in England when for the equivalent of £70 we had four nights of the exact same (amazing) artists and four days of the beach, pool and guaranteed sunshine”, she said.
FIB is thankful to all the people who attended last year edition, for their blog posts, their reviews and their presences on social networks. It sounds like we’ll be seeing most of you back at the festival next year. ( https://twitter.com/RawsthorneJames/status/772773167207186432 https://twitter.com/eden_bunyan/status/773238634719903744 )!
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