As the ski season wraps up for the year, the dust settles on another round of ski music festivals. One of the latest additions in the end of season ski festival calendar is Bansko Vibe. As the name suggests, it’s based out in the Bulgarian ski resort of Bansko, and took place at the end of March 2024 – to a backdrop of a good powder dump across Europe as well as a reasonable season across Europe.
We spoke to Martin Phelps, one of the main organisers of the Bansko Vibe festival to get his take on this new festival on the scene, and to hear about where he thinks it can go in the coming years.
Bansko’s apres ski reputation
While the Alps tend to steal the ski resort limelight in Europe, they’re not the only ski party in town. Bansko in Bulgaria has long held a reputation as a budget alternative to the premium Alpine ski experience, with the apres ski in particular held up as much better value compared to the likes of Courchevel and St Anton.
And with apres ski being one of the main reasons for many people to head off to the mountains, it might seem odd that Bansko is currently lacking a major ski music festival. The ski music festival scene is one that has been growing rapidly in recent years, with big names such as Snowbombing and Tomorrowland getting the headlines.
And while Horizon festival was a big name a few years back, this large festival left Bansko for Andorra in 2017, leaving Eastern Europes largest ski resort with a big hole in the apres ski calendar. In fact, Bansko Vibe was born out of the embers of the Horizon Festival, as Martin Phelps, owner of the Explore Bansko Chalets tells me.
“We’d met a few people during the popular Horizon Festival in Bansko, in particular, one guy called Aaron who loves the resort and thought that Horizon was a great festival”, says Martin.
“In fact, Aaron was the main guy in a growing group who visited us most years. And although Bansko’s apres ski scene is excellent, we felt that we could do something to connect the dots and make a bigger event. And this is how, in 2023, we stumbled across the idea of setting up the Bansko Vibe festival”
The first Vibe
It was near the end of the 2023 ski season that Aaron and Martin first set up a few DJ nights at venues across Bansko. One of these in particular, at the Kolibata Bar, set the tone for what was to come.
“A few people in Aaron’s group were kinda minor celebrities and up-and-coming DJs, including a guy called Twaine Plummer. Previously featured on TVs Gogglebox, and now a rising star in the UK Garage scene, we got Twaine on the decks and it went off. It was an absolutely pumping apres session, and it really showed that Bansko wanted and needed a new festival set up”, as Martin recounts.
“As soon as the ski season had finished, we started putting the groundwork in place for a festival in 2024. And that’s really how we started with getting Bansko Vibe off the ground”.
The work started in the summer of 2023.
Gearing up for next season
“We got on our socials and the groundwork started to try and take the 2024 event over a period of 6 days”.
“Now we had Twaine ready in place for the 2024 season and we started adding to the roster with some smaller UK based DJs. It was starting to take shape. In fact, during the summer, I was then getting messages in Bansko from more DJs, but I had to explain to them all that there was very little budget, but this was no problem for most of them as they just wanted to play and be a part of the event.”
Martin started to set up the key elements such as a website and to sell tickets (‘sell’ being a misnomer as the tickets were mostly free) on the Eventbrite website. Despite the fact that Bansko Vibe was only going to be a small affair, to start with, it still took it’s toll as Martin was also juggling managing his chalet business as well as handling things such as catering.
As he says, “I did have doubts in my mind as we approached December 2023 as to what the hell I was doing. I was pretty much trying to organise the event on my own and looking to have 3 full chalets through this current season – with no experience of ever being involved in a festival. Never mind trying to bring it all together… I was starting to think I had put myself under a hell of a lot of pressure to try and pull some form of successful event off as failure would have weighed terribly on my mind.”
As new year arrived, and with the winter season in full swing, Martin was managing to keep his chalet business running while also putting in the hours to ensure that Bansko Vibe would work too.
But, help was on the way.
“I got a call from a Welsh guy called Jason Bales who had just come into town to board for the season. He was a DJ and had seen my Facebook posts and wanted to get involved. So now, thank god I had someone to help me get things in motion and who knew his way around CDjs and mixers”, says a relieved Martin.
The friendship was formed as they spent an hour or two on the mountain skiing and boarding and a plan was formed.
And together with another local, Dylan Kilbride, who runs the local Bansko Pub Crawl, there was now a team in place to pull the event together.
“We had now got 3 venues for the Bansko Vibe DJ sets. We’d started to actually plan out set timings and now we were also starting to sell tickets”.
“We had the Kolibata restaurant/bar on the ski road which is an open air venue much loved by skiers and boarders as they stop for a beer or bite to eat on their way back to Bansko. And we had the Hub Pub Bar run by Caroline a Scottish lady and her partner Kevin a Californian, they are well known in town and was very open to us doing some outdoor patio sets.”
“Also we’d agreed to use Contrabar run by Silvia and Rosen – Contrabar is probably the best apres ski bar in town which is gradually becoming very popular for those looking for weekend sets played by top Bulgarian DJs through the season. Add in the Euphoria Bar and Grill near the base station gondola, and things were looking good for the Vibe”
The event: Bansko Vibe 2024
The Bansko Vibe festival 2024 was held over the week from the 18th to the 24th March.
“Having never run an event like this, it’s fair to say I was pretty nervy”, says Martin. “When it kicked off, it started slowly to be honest. We’d sold around 600 tickets across all of the events, which is not bad at all”.
“But as we saw, every Bansko Vibe event built up to be a proper party vibe with some great nights.”
With full dancefloors and a buzzing atmosphere across the venues in Bansko, Martin feels that there is lots of potential for the festival to expand.
“While we’re not expecting to be like the Horizon festival, which was a big event run by professional organisers, we do think that Bansko Vibe shows what can be done to build on a strong foundation. The events were very well received by both the venue owners and the visitors, and with a selection of relatively small DJs, we’ve created a real buzz in town. I’m just hoping we can build on the Vibe for next season”, he says.
But, perhaps most importantly, how was the end of season snow in Bansko?
“We had some great conditions around the Bansko Vibe festival, with some fresh snow up on the mountain and even some fresh snow falling during our lower mountain sessions. The end of the season was great actually, which is quite common in Bansko. While you do get some icy or slushy conditions at the end of the days, there can be some great skiing to be had which is obviously one of the main draws for people heading to an event such as the Vibe”.
Ready for Bansko Vibe 2025?
Plans are already being put in place for Bansko Vibe 2025. The team are now looking at securing additional sponsorships and bringing in some bigger name DJs to appeal to a broader crowd for the end of next season.
Stay tuned for more updates about Bansko Vibe on their Facebook page.
Heading to Bansko? Check out Explore Bansko chalets.
