LXN WAY OUT WEST FESTIVAL We arrived in Gothenburg on Thursday to blue skies and an excited air about the city, undoubtedly influenced by Way Out West.

A short coach ride from the airport brought the LXN team to the city, where we stopped for a quick coffee and pizza at Da Matteo before heading to Slottsskogen, our “home” for the next few days. Although we chose to walk everywhere there were regular trams that stopped right outside of the park, making it super easy when travelling between the festival and your accommodation, as WOW doesn’t have camping onsite. We found a great apartment through Airbnb and actually enjoyed staying in the city as it meant we could explore more!

It took us a while to get used to the festival rules… there were certain areas that you couldn’t eat or drink in, and there was a pretty strict system set up around the site to implement this. But we quickly learned where the “bar areas” were and made it through the rest of the weekend just fine we assume this was to control litter as we all know what a monday morning looks like at Glastonbury. Something else we had to get used to was the food! Swedes seem to be much more health conscious than us Brits so food trucks weren’t selling the greasy festival feasts that we were used to; menus were mainly focused around tofu!

We spent Thursday exploring the festival grounds, checking out everyone’s style and enjoying the Briska cider, but our weekend really kicked off on Friday during Caribou’s set in the Linné tent! For just over an hour we, alongside everyone else around us, forgot that it was a bright summer’s day outside, and got lost in Caribou’s music. Each song was greeted with an excited roar from the crowd, and we were both surprised and flattered by Snaith’s overwhelmed reaction to this response. We left feeling excited and inspired, ready to enjoy the rest of our time in Sweden.

Other highlights included watching ‘Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck’ in the film tent, Pet Shop Boys – who put on one hell of a performance and pretty much had the entire festival dancing – Future Islands, The War on Drugs, Alt –J and Dorisburg. Following Dorisburg’s set on the Saturday night, Nadja Chatti brought our three days of fun to an end with an epic DJ set in the pouring rain. Dorisburg joined Chatti at the decks as Midnight hit and smiling, carefree faces were all around us, dripping wet from the rain. A net of lasers overhead illuminated everyone and everything in vibrant washes of light and when we looked up, the raindrops looked like glitter as they hit the light. The music pounded and we all excitedly danced until suddenly, the lights went off and we were plunged into silence.

Way Out West was clean and friendly with great vibes and a diverse lineup, we had a blast! Gothenburg itself is a beautiful city and well worth a visit; there are great restaurants, bars, galleries and museums and if you head to the outskirts there are some amazing walks and views. www.wayoutwest.se/en