Sónar, And Harpa’s Lights: An Impression

Festivals in Germany are for the most part muddy and dirty; broken bottles everywhere mix with sludge, and the toilets look like shit. You erect your tent on the festival grounds, knowing that—once you’re drunk—you won’t find it again among the ocean of tents that look just like it. You dress up in a cow costume or experience the music as a hippie or whatever you always wanted to be. And people just make out wherever they are.

An electro music festival in a concert hall should be quite a different experience, you’d think. One you could never find in Germany.

But, Harpa is cool. Thursday, eight o’clock. You can see her glowing from afar. Once you’re in you get a wristband, like at every festival.

Harpa is full of colours—blue, red, green. It’s not crowded, it’s not dirty, it’s not muddy. The first DJ, the first beer—horrible Carlsberg is horribly expensive. The light show is amazing and mixes with the music, but the dance floor is quite empty.

Ten o’clock. More beer, more crowd, the first vomit on Harpa’s floor right next to us. Cleaned within minutes. Maybe that’s the most important plus. The lights start to turn around—blue, red, green.

Twelve o’clock. The toilets are still nice and clean, but the already sticky floor is filling with plastic cups and beer cans. The dirt is coming. Glittering French guys with colourful clothes and strange looking caps spraying glitter all over the floor and the people. The costumes are coming.

One o’clock. Harpa is cool, Harpa is shining. The crowd is everywhere, the crowd is drunk and the atmosphere is great. Sónar and Harpa work without mud, with some dirt and with nice, clean toilets. And when you’re lucky you wake up in your own bed sometime the next morning.