Snowbombing is a huge festival on snow that takes place in the Austrian Alps. Here we take a look at its best bits.
On the other side of the village, another gondola takes punters up to the Arctic Disco. Fancy dress is strongly encouraged. As Fatboy Slim tells us, “It’s very much a gang. It’s one of those festivals where people go year in, year out… There’s a kind of kindred gang spirit of lunatics and ne’er-do-wells, a lot of whom have the capacity to ski by day and party by night, night after night.”
Craig David closed out the week on Friday night with a headline set at the 2000-capacity Racket Club, following sets from Skepta and Shy FX with a performance of music old and new. He sprinkled in some covers too, with some TLC (‘No Scrubs’) and a glorious, three-song Bieber tribute.
The Prodigy roared into Mayrhofen on Friday night for the Forest Party, which as the name suggests takes place under a canopy of trees just on the edge of the village. Despite the rain, revellers were out in force to take in hits like ‘Omen’ and ‘Nasty’.
Bastille also played a new track at the Forest Party on Thursday night. Fans think it’s about Donald Trump, it’s called ‘The Currents’, and you can listen to it by clicking this link.
Guess who else was at Snowbombing? Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, the 1988 British Olympic ski-jumper whose amazing story has been told in the new film, Eddie The Eagle. Here he’s a celebrity, takes people out on the slopes for a bit of skiing, and meets everyone in the village’s many bars after. Masks optional.
Another local phenomenon is Mr Motivator, who runs cool down classes after skiing, up on the top of the mountain. After seeing him up there, Groove Armada’s Tom Findlay told NME, “That sort of captured the spirit of Snowbombing pretty perfectly. It was actually one of the rare moments I felt quite proud to be British, just to see him up there and the reception he was getting.”
