Music Festivals Still Worth Flying For

Unsound is built for sounds that do not yet have a stable genre section, with Krakow venues and serious commissions rewarding attentive travel.

Roskilde is enormous but still feels collectively owned, with nonprofit governance, volunteer culture and adventurous bookings distinguishing it from a touring festival product.

Primavera still treats indie music as a wide category, placing major pop, rap, electronic and difficult guitar acts on one carefully sequenced bill.

Glastonbury is a temporary city rather than a sequence of stages, with enough music, performance and accidental discovery to justify the logistical ordeal.

Fuji Rock combines mountain scenery, famously good organization and a globally curious lineup, although the rain remains part of the ticket.

Nyege Nyege presents East African electronic music at full volume and in its own context, making the trip more valuable than another imported global lineup.

Montreux places major names, specialist performances and small rooms along the same lake, preserving intimacy inside one of jazz's best-known brands.

Rock in Rio offers pure scale while keeping Brazilian artists central to the bill, a balance many internationally branded festivals fail to achieve.

Sonar combines electronic music, visual art and useful daytime technology programming, giving visitors a reason to engage before the clubs open.

We Out Here gathers the UK jazz and club continuum in one field, letting live ensembles, selectors and dancers share the same audience.