We LOVED our time at Festival Med in 2023. This year our full time guest was my cousin Elsa, but we also enjoyed a day with Jorge and his friend from Lithuania, and a day with Karen. The festival itself, for the first time, had a featured country – Morocco – and every aspect of the event was instilled with the spirit of that country.

Day 1: The festival streets felt a little more crowded this year. I honestly can’t believe it isn’t jam packed since the cost for pre-purchased tickets is still only €10 per day, an insane value considering the number of musical acts on display.

There are always plenty of wandering acts in addition to the headliners, here is one of the classical Portuguese groups.

There were some clouds in the sky but we settled into a lovely evening.

The sound and lighting teams do a great job, especially considering how quickly each stage has to be turned over for multiple acts.

Early on day one we got to enjoy the João Frade Trio and special guest trumpet player Miron Rafajlovic. The whole group was excellent but the accordion was a unique highlight as the group jammed through song after song.

We grabbed some snacks as the night went on, all the food was excellent!

Soon after midnight we got to see Puuluup, a crazy Estonian group who layered themselves in crazy loops.

We ended night one with Mouvman Alé.

Day 2: After some mid day activities with our friend Jorge we headed to the festival intending to see the first act of the night, a classical concert. We just wanted to stop for a quick bite first. Because the historic part of Loulé is closed off you can actually sit down and enjoy a meal at one of the restaurants that are located in the event space!

Food took longer than expected (worth it) and we missed the classical music, a theme that would continue throughout the event. This day quickly kicked off with one of our favorite acts, the Cuban group Roberto Fonseca. We were about 20 feet from the stage and the music was superb!

The night continued with good food and more horns!

We had a long day 2 and didn’t want to fizzle out in the event Karen wanted to stay up for the late night DJ on day 3.

Day 3: By day three our navigation might have been a bit off, there was definitely part of the night which felt like we were ping ponging between acts and not really settling in to anything. This chaos was exacerbated by the huge night three crowds. The streets were full and getting from one stage to another probably took twice as long as on night one.

I really failed to capture many musical moments during the first part of the night. As we finished up I felt that I had another great experience at the festival but I personally preferred the variety of the previous year. The Moroccan soundscape started to make some acts blend into each other.

As the end of night 3 was approaching, Karen and I waited for our group to reconvene at what would end up being our ultimate band of the festival Idiotape.

I left with a smile on my face as the band was intense Korean warehouse electronica that brought me back to my Nine Inch Nails musical phase. I’m not sure that everyone else loved the group as much as I did, but I do think everyone agreed that the company was great and that Festival Med 2024 was a huge success!