Ok, so I like electronic dance music, more specifically Trance. When I started in the 1990's, the US was a bit behind in that department.
Still, with San Francisco and San Jose nearby, I've had some opportunities to see some great EDM/Trance DJs. Back in the early 2000's, they sadly played club music in the US that was nowhere close to the hits they had composed and were known for, but over the years, as Trance started becoming more popular, those DJs finally started playing their good tunes in the US too, and maybe from 2004 on, it's only been getting better. Popsicle Halloween 2004 was really the beginning of great music parties in the San Francisco Area, and thankfully things have gotten even better since then
As a matter of fact, after another 10 years (2015 and beyond) the good news is that Trance has grown quite a following in the US, and places like the SF Bay Area, and while Trance has been declared dead a few times in the last 10 years, it's still going strong here.
Trance Family SF is definitely strong in the area, we've been getting more big trance parties every year, including many top DJs that come visit us what feels like every other week now (as of 2018-2019), and through those events, I made many friends in Trance Family SF. Thanks to you all.
Over those years, I got the chance to meet a few of my favourite DJs, including Armin more than once, and my last hobby has been to work on lights for my shirt and pants (version 3) and (version 4)
After a busy summer festival, and a previous and first time in Malta for Rong Open Air Festival Malta 2024, I had one more summer festival: Captured Festival, back in Malta. I definitely enjoyed Malta the first time around and was happy to be back.
This event was co-sponsored by TrancefamilyLA, so a few of us were there:
It was just 1.5 days after burning man, flying home from burning man, unpacking everything, getting all the dust off (and that's a lot of work), and packing for the next trip to Europe. Unfortunately, for my LED outfit, it means taking out all the LEDs, washing it with vinegar first, then we washing detergent, and carefully re-installing the LEDs, which is especially tricky on the shirt. Long story short, I didn't have time to rebuild the pants and shirt, so brought the spare parts and tools to put everything back together in Malta:
My LED shoes have also been a hassle of unreliability, so I brought my last spare modules and used my portable battery soldering iron to make one last working set before I come up with better LED shoes (you have some, really? please tell me which ones)
I brought some of last spare LED modules and soldered battery connectors to triple their meager battery life
After fixing my shirt for half the boat party (at least I got to enjoy the music), it was working again for the night club party (excuse the terrible dirty club mirror):
Malta, the new Europe Trance Destination? Rong Malta vs Euphoria Malta vs Capture Malta
I'm not going to talk about Lumi here again, you can go read my past reports from this year for more details, but the only reason I mention it in this Malta heading, is that more people have been looking for alternatives to lumi, for a combination of reasons ranging from pricing (honestly I don't feel lumi is terribly overpriced for that it offers, but lodging nearby has gotten more expensive for sure), the security team (will leave it at that), too many party people who aren't true trance lovers, especially on saturdays, and probably the most visible change has been the loss of small festival feel as lumi has been becoming bigger, more commercial (sorry, but the 6E water thing is insulting) and more expensive every year.
I have to say that this happens to many festivals as they become more popular, unless they take steps to prevent growth by limiting venue size and capping ticket sales, most festivals tend to grow until they feel big and commercial.
So why am I saying all this? Well, because this in my opinion created these new festivals in Malta this year (2 out of 3 were new), from Rong Festival Malta, Euphoria Festival Malta just a few weeks later (unfortunate calendar timing and just a few days after EDC Vegas, making it unreasonable to attend for me), and then of course this Captured Festival also in Malta
So I hope I won't spoil anything by answering the question now of which Malta Trance Festival do I recommend, and honestly I would say all 3, but since that's not really feasible for most, including me, I'll describe all 3 so that you can choose, with the understanding that I have never been to Euphoria so it's just my understanding, not personal experience. I will go from cheaper and least commercial to more expensive and more commercial:
Euphoria Festival Malta is indeed the cheapest and most grass roots of the 3, if it weren't just a few days after EDC and I could have attended, I'm pretty sure it's similar to Anomaly Summer of Trance in feel, just without the 4 stages from ASOL: smaller festival feel, more chance to chat with and meet the DJs, and so so forth. The DJs will be less mainstage big festival DJs, but that's also a good thing in many ways, and I really mean this: I've attended lots of big festivals with the big name DJs, I do absolutely enjoy them, but it's really a nice and a breath of fresh air to enjoy smaller festivals that simply have more of a family and friends feel and where you're going to get real trance (more techno and hardstyle in the bigger trance festivals this year). I hope I didn't screw this description since indeed I wanted to attended, but just couldn't. Please send me corrections on IG or FB messenger if needed.
Captured Festival Malta would go in the middle, it had more of a mix of DJs between lesser known, cheaper to book and easier to meet before/after their set, to bigger name DJs that cost more, come with riders (a list of expensive alcohol bottles to provide before/after the show), that are less likely to mingle in the crowd. Since this page is about captured, depending on the day, it was 1 to 4 stages of music. This was the only one of the 3 to have psytrance (on day 3 only). You could pay with regular money, except on the first boat and the club on the 4th day, so that was a plus compared to all those festivals that require buying fake money credits (except day4 that definitely required them :( ).
Rong Malta was also a first timer in Malta this year, and they had a bigger lineup of more expensive DJs, as well as well as more means in lighting, lasers, and a few fireworks. It was also the only of the 3 that had more expensive VIP tickets. They sadly also required fake money you had to buy beforehand. Outside of the fake money/token nonesense, I also had a great time there, but it's of course a slightly bigger festival vibe without being a mega festival, or even feeling as big as lumi.
For comparison, Lumi would fit here as bigger even (4 stages for all 4 days and 11h/day), and most DJs (too many for me) in that amount of time.
Verdict: you will have fun and great trance at all 3 of those 3 Malta Festivals:
So even if I had been able to all 3, I wouldn't tell you that one is clearly is better choice. I think I'll be pragmatic and maybe point to your time off calendar as well as your budget. All 3 are fun in their own way, and none of them are a bad choice, and by that I mean no showstoppers or things that really would turn you off like some of the stuff at the trance festival that shall not be named anymore :) If some of you think I might be hard to please, actually I'm happy by default, and you have to give me clear reasons to be unhappy with unnecessary BS (and yeah, fake money/tokens goes in that bucket), over the top security, and/or petiness (figure out how much money you need, charge us the correct amount in the ticket price, and then no nickel and diming once we are there).
So honestly, all 3 festivals did well on that front, and I think you'll have a good time at all 3. Also now, you hopefully know where to lean if you prefer small and intimate vs slightly bigger.
The People
As always, people are what makes those events that much more fun of course, and glad to see the same friends around the world:
Ferry Tayle had the winning shirt
I used his idea :)
Airwave suggested we modify it, slightly :)
Had a bit of fun as usual.
Steve was having a good time, as always:
he actually requested that we take this picture :)
And now I'm also lucky enough to have pictures with both Vini Vicis :)
my first one from 2021
I also had an updated graphic for Andy Moor
As well as Sean Tyas
Plus plenty of friends and people with fun outfits:
Day 1
A bit like Rong, it was different things on different days. The first day was kind of chill with an optional extra cost boat party, which turned out to be the exact same boat I had been on months prior for Rong Malta :) The one nice thing Captured did was to rented 2 similar boats to allow more people to experience the party, and as extra bonus, the DJs were able to swap between boats during the night, allowing both boats to get mostly the same music.
The only small minus was that the boats left 1.5h late (took a long time to get everyone checked in), so the cruise was mostly sunset/night, which wasn't a bad thing after all
Solarstone
and Ferry Tayle
After the boat party was over, there was an after party at a club that got changed last minute (you had to know to follow the FB group to stay updated with multiple changes), so I went there for a short while, but having barely slept the previous nights and having just gotten out of burning man 2 days prior, I was totally exhausted and went to get some sleep
on the plus side, while my outfit came in pieces in the luggage, after the boat party I had it assembled and fixed again
Day #1 Video Summary:
A few sets I was able to record
Ferry Tayle:
Solarstone:
Day 2
The organizers were ambitious and had planned day parties starting around noon for the remaining days, but had to communicate that they got cancelled due to last minute issues with the venues. Honestly that was not an issue for me, the weather was honestly hot and sweaty as balls and it was not fun to party in those conditions. It was so much nicer when I went to Malta in May, this time around, it felt like Thailand, which was not a good thing. Until sunset, the weather was pretty unbearable all those days. I'll also add that Malta has a lot of cool things to visit, so it was not a bad thing to have some morning and early afternoon time to visit attractions.
Everything for days 2 and 3 was at Gianpula Village, a clubbing destination in the middle of Malta with multiple independent clubs inside:
and finally the sun went to hide and weather became a bit more bearable:
room 2 was upstairs with a nice top view and swimming pool
Back to mainstage, now that things were finally dark:
great to see FactorB again
and Thrillseekers
If you got hungry, basic food was available at reasonable prices. Tap water is drinkable in Malta, was available, and no one cared that I brought water in my camelback (contrast with lumi obviously):
we did get some lasers
Day #2 Video Summary:
And a few sets I was able to record:
Thrillseekers:
JOC:
Factor B:
Giuseppe Ottaviani:
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Day 3
Day 3 was also at Gianpula Village, but used different clubs inside it than the previous days.
Day 3 was the longest day/night with 4 different stages, so plenty of music. The rooftop location was all vynil mixing, old school:
Orkidea
Sam Mitcham was one of the organizers and also mixed vinyl for us
great way to enjoy sunset
Back at mainstage, Paavo was there playing his new music as P.O.S: (initials of his name, if you didn't know :) )
The cool thing was underground, which played psytrance all night. It was a very cool looking cave venue:
Back at mainstage with a lovely set from Solarstone (partial recording below):
the main room had legit lighting
The big surprise for me was Emma Hewitt who came to sing live on stage. Not all the songs were hers, but I'm a sucker for live singing trance, so I had a great time (full set below):
Vini Vici was next on mainstage for some great psytrance (full set below):
The main room was banging for the rest of the night:
Bryan was nice enough to take pictures with fans
Bryan Kearney:
Lostly:
And more trance vinyl classics at the same time, stage hopping:
Day #3 Video Summary:
Day 4
Sunday was the last day, home stretch! The last venue was another club, slightly that last venue had a stupid token policy, with a minimum spend, no less. WTF is that? You have to spend 30E if all you want is a drink? Well, as usual when they have ridiculous policies like that, I made sure to not spend a dime, and I wish more would do the same to tell them how not ok this is.
plenty of ways to spend your tokens, a $30 tequila bottle for 219E :)
I found out the night before that my LED panels grew a fault after some post burning man damage, so I brought enough to do panel surgery and replace the broken panel while enjoying some trance :)
Burning man unfortunately damaged the chips on my board, creating green lines
so I spent time at the pool listening to music dealing with the ugly parts of my outfit, I try not to show anymore ;)
old panel out, new panel in (I have 6 panels total)
The venue had 2 rooms, both playing lovely trance:
nice swimming pool
not everyone got thirsty :)
and Paul Oakenfold was up to no good ;)
So happy to see Andy Moor again, got the full set here:
Paul did a banging classics set, 30y of perfecto (also full set):
And then, very glad to have Sean Tyas again, it had been a while for me, full set below:
The party went on for a little while longer, but I had an early appointment the next day, so I ended things there to get a bit of rest
Day #4 Video Summary:
Conclusion
This festival was similar to Rong Malta in many ways, multiple venues, 4 days, lots of fun. Glad that I was able to attend.
Mpre photos:
Here are sets from one stage I recorded. The video quality is not great, but I figured it was still good to have a nice souvenir and be able to re-enjoy the music:
Day1:
As mentioned at the top, there is a fair amount of competition on Malta Trance Festivals. While I only went to 2 out of the 3 possible, honestly all 3 are fun, and it may be more whether this one fits your work/vacation schedule
Everything wasn't perfect, there were some location changes, the day parties I probably would not have gone to anyway, got cancelled, but they did a reasonable job communicating with us about what was going on and making alternate plans where appropriate. I'll note that Rong also had some similar challenges, which goes to show it's not easy.
The one thing I wasn't quite ready for was the weather which honestly was hot and humid, as in Thailand level hot and humid, and it was not fun until after sunset. From what I've been told, it was worse than expected for that time of the year in Malta, so hopefully next year will have better weather in Sept. But it's true that Rong in May and Euphoria Weekender just 2 weeks later had much nicer weather.
I will say for this festival too, thanks to its more limited size, that you could meet the organizers, and they cared.
security was more than reasonable at all venues, which again, I was thankful for. I just brought my camelback with water every day and it was not an issue.
For this festival too, it being smaller in size (not in length) allowed for chatting with some DJs more easily, which was nice. Some bigger name DJs came and went without you being able to ever see them, but so be it.
For my pet peeve of stupid fake money and tokens, it was mostly ok except the first boat that had tokens, and the 4th day venue that had ridiculous tokens with a 30E minimum spend. Organizers, please tell venues not to do this, or select other ones that don't do this BS.
In the good surprises, I personally really appreciated having P.O.S. playing his new music, as well as Emma Hewitt live, those two were special treats for me. Let's also not forget the 30 years of perfecto set that Paul Oakenfold played, of all the years I've seen him, that was by far my favorite set of his.
Good crowd of trance lovers, thanks to all of you.
So thank you to everyone who made this happen, for a first year event in this new country, things went quite well considering.
