Corona Sunsets — Everything there is to love about summer

Everything there is to love about summer

Way back in the summer of ’14, we witnessed the birth of what is possibly one of the best kept secrets on the festival calendar, after Mexican lager brand Corona decided to join forces with SFX Entertainment and Beatport to launch ‘Corona Sunsets’ – a globe travelling day festival, encompassing everything there is to love about summer; cold beer, sunshine, good vibes and, of course, banging tunes!

For those of you who may not have had this little gem of a festival cross your radar yet, the ethos behind Corona Sunsets is that ‘every experience has been handpicked to encompass the perfect day under the sun’ – and boy do they deliver on that sentiment.

On Saturday 30th July, your faithful Festival For You team travelled from North London to the depths of Greenwich (which seems to be brimming with potential these days, who knew?) to check out what all the fuss was about, and in no time at all we were transported from the concrete jungle outside Greenwich station to a white sand, man-made beach on Meridian Quays.

From the get-go, we could tell that this festival was a well-oiled machine. Let’s face it – one of the downsides to attending some of the bigger, more established festivals, is the inevitable amount of time you’ll spend moaning about the queues. First, there’s the dreaded queue to get in with the millions of check points, and then (if you’re female, or just a bloke who’s decided to eat from the dodgy curry van) you’ll probably spend a lot of the day hopping from foot-to-foot in line for the toilet, or else packed like sardines at the bar trying to wangle yourself a drink (cue toilet queue again – it’s a vicious cycle, we’ve all been there).

It can be a drag – and often results in missing bits of sets or losing all your mates.

That’s one of the things that was so great about Corona Sunsets. It’s just the right size and capacity so that you get the perfect balance of a great crowd and buzzing atmosphere, without feeling like herded cattle.

On arrival, we were able to walk straight in with minimal fuss. The maximum wait time for the toilets (which stayed miraculously clean and filled with toilet roll the entire day) was five minutes, while our longest wait time at the bar was probably only fifteen, and that was only because we’d picked ourselves a bad spot out of eye-line.

Corona was of course the cheapest beverage at £5 a bottle, and came ice-cold with wedges of sweet lime, which instantly made it feel like the sun was shining that much brighter through the clouds, in spite of the predictably unreliable English weather. Details like the sandy beach, beach games and the ‘dream flag’ art installation at the festival entrance, all added to the overall feeling of us having discovered something really special and the crowd was one of the best we’ve seen in a while, full of energy and noticeably made up of your friendlier breed of festivalgoer – with groups happily intermingling and dancing together in a way that really represented everything that’s great about London in the summertime.

The set design of the two hand-crafted Griffin and Crown stages were impressive and definitely worth mentioning – the main stage felt reminiscent of what you’d find at Glasto or Tomorrowland and featured renowned DJs like Nightmares on Wax and Robin Schulz, who kept the disks spinning with back-to-back summer bangers that could have had you believing you were vibing in Ibiza, and kept everyone up and moving way after the sun had set over the city skyline.

All in all, this is the perfect day festival – great value for money, no queues, room to move, but with an electric and exciting atmosphere that totally encapsulates everything there is to love about summer. It’s always a good sign when a team of veteran festival reviewers keep turning to each other with huge grins, exclaiming: ‘This is amazing!’

We may even have to pack our bags and follow this one on tour. Italy or Japan anyone?

By Emma Kosminsky