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Primavera Sound Porto 2024

PRIMAVERA SOUND PORTO 2024
_ © Hugo Lima | www.hugolima.com | www.instagram.com/hugolimaphoto

And it’s gone. Our tenth trip to the Parque da Cidade is over, and despite our usual (and some new) gripes, our eyes are already on next year’s edition: 12, 13, and 14 June 2025. Let’s start with the pros: the three ‘green’ stages of Primavera Sound Porto (the original Vodafone and Super Bock side-by-side stages, plus the new Plenitude stage by the meadow) are unrivalled. You’ll struggle to find any other festival this size where it’s so easy to see most shows from a good spot without having to show up half an hour in advance, no matter how tall you aren’t.

Sadly, the fourth one, the new main stage, is nothing of the sort. A massive stage is necessary for the festival to grow, be able to pull big headliners like SZA and Lana del Rey, accommodate 40k+ visitors, and keep the lights on by selling thousands of daily tickets to people who may or may not care about anything else on the lineup that day. It also helps keeping the festival somewhat affordable – although increasingly expensive – for its core (is it really still the core?) audience who comes to Porto for three days of music. But, after two years, the organisation should now decide, before it’s too late to reverse course: is this kind of growth desirable at all?

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Preview: MENT Ljubljana 2024

Showcase festival MENT Ljubljana‘s tenth edition kicks off next week (21-24 February), and we’re going to be there for the first time. Tipped by industry insiders as one of the best events in Europe to discover new talent, we were drawn to it by the focus on European artists (not exclusively, from all over the Balkans, Central, and Eastern Europe), the iconic venues, and, of course, the charming capital of Slovenia. Labels, collectives and other entities (public radio station Val 202, legendary local label Moonlee, or Belgrade-based tastemakers Hali Gali) curate stages during the two main days of the festival, and are the best way to get a sense of regional scenes. To top it off, this year’s edition boasts an extra segment (and an extra day), CE/MENT, focused on clubbing and electronic music, and features an extensive three-day conference, the largest in the region, with over 120 industry representatives spread by 33 panels.

Our thirteen artists to watch all come from different European countries, and most sing in their native languages. A breath of fresh air from your typical anglocentric festival. (Yes, I’m writing this in English so we can understand each other, I’m aware.) We’ll be posting on our Instagram throughout the festival, so make sure you follow us there, too. MENT Ljubljana 2024 runs from 21 to 24 February, and both day tickets and passes are still available.

We have created a Spotify playlist with our top picks (see below), but the festival was kind enough to put together a playlist with all the artists on your favorite streaming service.

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live

Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2023: our picks

© Hugo Lima | fb.me/hugolimaphotography | hugolima.com

Well, it’s that time of the year again. First things first. Let’s start with what 99% of the people want from us every single summer: our printable blocky timetable, which you can download below, in a variety of formats:

PDF | PDF mobile, wed/thu | PDF mobile, fri/sat | XLS

And, while you dream about the current weather predictions actually happening…

…keep reading to find out about our top 10 picks for this year’s festival, as always mostly focused on the smaller names of the lineup. And scroll to the bottom for a Spotify playlist featuring not only the artists featured below, but also acts like Dry Cleaning, Jessie Ware, THUS LOVE, or Crack Cloud.

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Primavera Sound Porto 2023

PRIMAVERA SOUND PORTO 2023 _ DAY 1 / 7JUN _ © Hugo Lima | hugolima.com | www.fb.me/hugolimaphotography | instagram.com/hugolimaphoto

2023 was a landmark year for Primavera Sound Porto: the tenth coming of the festival was also its first without their lifelong naming sponsor, the first four-day long edition at Porto’s Parque da Cidade, and a new main stage and festival grounds’ layout were tested for the first time. Ditching the gorgeous, secluded meadow where the ATP stage once sounded like sacrilege. But the new layout, including previously fenced off areas of the park that are closer to the sea, undoubtedly makes things smoother in a festival that started to feel too crowded, as per last year’s experience. We could do without the smell near the new main stage, but let’s blame the weather for that.

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live

Primavera Sound Porto ’23: our top picks

After a year’s hiatus (three, actually – thank you covid) to attend the shitshow that was last year’s first weekend in Barcelona, we’re now back to regular programming. A lot has changed since last time we were at Primavera Sound Porto, including the name: there’s no naming sponsor anymore, which will probably confuse people who, for some reason unknown to us, used to call this festival by its sponsor’s name.

The festival grounds are also changing for the 10th edition: capacity has increased to 45k, there’s a new main stage (Porto stage), the old main stage is now called Vodafone (still side-by-side with the Super Bock stage, with alternating shows), and the good old ATP stage (known as Binance last year) is gone, replaced by the Plenitude stage somewhere else. There are also more bands than before (up to 5 bands per stage per day), and, exceptionally, there’s an extra festival day on Wednesday, just so Kendrick Lamar can pay us a visit.

Be sure to download our printable timetables (PDF and XLS). Make sure you keep them on your phone for easy and offline access, too. Below you can find our picks for this year – there’s a lot of guitars there, sorry about that.