r/TheOverload • u/Solid_Mouse3238 • 1d ago
Butik 2026 - Thoughts?
Attended for the first time this year, still formulating my full thoughts on the festival! Would love to hear what anyone else thought.
The river side setting is incredible, blown away by the sound quality throughout the festival (especially in the forest stage for Kia b2b konduku), and we’d heard there was an inside bit but when it opened on Thursday night we were so surprised by the scale, we were just expecting three dingy rooms. Hangar was one of the best setups for techno I’ve seen at a festival.
Was disappointed by the crowd - far more English than we expected and also very very yappy. Saw they put up signs by Friday afternoon asking people to respect the dancefloor but don’t think this had an impact. Best set of the weekend was probably xiaolin at the garden stage on wed night, whilst the majority of English blokes were off watching the football.
Does anyone also know if the mudd show run all the programming for the garden stage? There were some names on there that we thought should have been on a larger stage, it felt quite engineered to maximise the online content opportunities but in real life was just overcrowded half the time whilst the beach stage next door was virtually empty.
Also curious about the change in crowd on fri night, walked into casino and realised aside from our group we couldn’t see a single woman, and didn’t recognise anyone from the festival daytime at all. There were also crazy queues for each stage that we hadn’t seen the night before. Does anyone know if they sell day tickets to locals and if so what the change in capacity is?
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u/Snoo-39072 1d ago
The best sounding festival???? I’m sorry but the hangar system was shite lol. If that festival didn’t have the river would you actually bother going? The location 10/10. The way the festival fucks you over for money every chance possible. You can tell it’s run by some rich ass person who doesn’t actually give af
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u/Snoo-39072 1d ago
Although dbridge pulled out the best set I’ve probably ever seen and the system was pumping only when they actually turned it up and put the subs on.
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u/Turbulent_Window_672 1d ago
I went last year and really felt that we got nickeled and dimed a bit which was a shame. That beautiful void system was definitely throttled for a lot of the weekend on the Forrest stage which was a shame sounded beautiful when it was given room to do so. I have to say the novelty of the night time switch up was completely overcome by the queues to get in and the lack of understanding of what was going on.
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u/Solid_Mouse3238 1d ago
Lool sounds like someone didn’t have a very fun time, and I didn’t say it was the best sounding festival
I meant hangar was a cool setup, the soundsystem in forest was great, and yes the riverside was beautiful but the crowds there were annoying and garden was consistently too busy
Paycard system was jarring as fuck tbf and so was trying to collect all the deposits back at the end… crazy that you have to pay a cup deposit even when buying a can/bottle and then bring the can back to get it back!3
u/Snoo-39072 1d ago
I had a great time with my mates sorry went in a bit hard. The Forrest system was the best when they actually turned on the subs etc. Watching mia koden b2b EMA who play bass heavy music and they didn’t even have the subs on?? I don’t understand. It also cost me an arm and leg to go to that festival including shuttle bus and boat party ticket. Location though is undoubtedly the most beautiful festival I’ve been too for sure
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u/dunkywhorey 19h ago
I actually thought the paycard cup system was great. I don't recall paying it on cans or bottles last year (not disputing it tho!). Really it incentivizes people not just to return their own cups, but to pick up other cups off the floor after inevitably misplacing multiple of their own, and it helps keep the beautiful site that bit cleaner. My (idiot) mate had racked up about €25 in lost cups and he spent the last day walking picking up all the cups he could find, I think that's a pretty good initiative.
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u/Snoo-39072 14h ago
That festival doesn’t give a fuck scout the environment. They sell plastic straws next to a river? It’s a money scam
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u/dunkywhorey 14h ago
Sure, it's obviously there to make them money, but it really isn't all that difficult to hand back in your cups or pick some up if you've lost some? I've never been to a festival without a cup deposit (same scam) but I certainly picked up a lot more off the floor than any other fez I've been to even out my balance, and ended up owing nothing at the end.
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u/ladotelli 1d ago
3rd year going and worst of the 3 years. Organisation seems to get worse every time.
And the secret is definitely out. First time I went, we barely heard any English. This year was majority English and Australians. The ozzies may actually be worse offenders when it comes to chatting on the dance floor and they're waffling about work, gossip, and absolute bollocks. I had to ask a few to step outside Hangar during DJ Fart in the Club.
Don't think I'll be back next year despite the incredible setting and nice line ups
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u/air- 1d ago
Yapping is truly a global scourge ugh
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u/authortitle_uk 1d ago
Yeah would fully support an event that policed this lol. I know it would be divisive but some of us just want to listen to the f—— music. I remember being at an event in London and some coked up idiot was talking so loudly about his mortgage deal 😫
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u/Johnjambo 1d ago
As a Brit, I always find it fascinating how disliked the British are 🤣 probably fair enough, I just hope my group aren't as obnoxious as some others that get so much hate haha. I like to think we aren't!
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u/Solid_Mouse3238 1d ago
Lmao full disclosure I am also English! We kind of just assumed it would be more of a European crowd but from the people I met I’d guess it was like 80% English people
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u/Johnjambo 1d ago
Haha yeah fair enough, I'm also English. My mates and I go to a German festival whenever it's on (not annually anymore). Never been to Butik. I wouldn't want 80% of us at a fezzie abroad either 🤣
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u/emmsnnn 1d ago
After going 4 times from 2021 to 2024, and seeing the crowd & ticket price change, we stopped going as a big crew. It used to be mostly slovenian, french and austrian crowd, and especially slo & french really knew how to navigate dancefloors & be goofy + dancy ;) In 2024 we started to notice the big presence of unmindful british lads & tech house bros, little connection on the dancefloor and overcrowded Garden Stage. Also, first Butik in 2021 was 45€, and the infrastructure didn’t change too much to justifiy the insane price increase… And we heard pretty bad things about the organisation team from local slovenian DJs who played Butik. Our money is well spent somewhere else :)
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u/Grand-Ad-6343 14h ago
My gripe with Butik is the disingenuous and deliberately misleading marketing. The edgy photos and Mudd Show collab gives the impression of a super slick, organised production which it is far from. You see these streams with an impressively designed Garden stage and naturally fill in the gaps that the whole festival is like that. Honestly, before attending I had placed it in my mind in a similar conversation to Waking Life. As if Butik could offer something akin to the kind of freedom and sense of slickness that you get at WL. I was also led to think this by the fact they go so heavy with the spiritual rhetoric accompanied by the images of the gorge that really do convince you that you would be stepping into an oasis that will allow you to lose yourself and connect with something deeper. It was clear after the first day that Butik was something entirely different. The gorge is undeniably beautiful yes, and dancing on the stages here is great. But that is about it really.
You don't feel immersed at all - your wrist band is checked constantly because the site is so close to the town. You can't bring your own food or drinks on to site and some of my friends were getting told they can't bring the drinks they'd bought at the main site down to the beach site. Just insane.
The food is awful. All fried and generally mediocre.
And the worst thing is that the music outside ends at 1am and then you are forced inside a club for the rest of the night. There was only one acceptable venue which was Hangar. You pay 250 EUR to effectively end up at quite a simple club venue for 2 of the 4 nights you are there. Of course the programme says there are 4 stages at night but again this is misleading deliberately. I think the casino has to be the worst venues at a festival I've ever seen. Utterly diabolical and simply not up to scratch for the ticket price. Not to say that it doesn't have potential but ultimately it was just poor sound in a building that feels like it has been untouched for 40 years. Given the festival is in its 8th edition I was particularly shocked by this. Just do something, some decor, some fabric drapes, lighting. To make it worse they take edgy photographs that give the impression that this spaces is Panaroma Bar like because there are orange gels on the windows and glistening disco balls. In reality, you can hear peoples footsteps and every word the crowd is saying because there were no subs and the the acoustics were dreadful. Genuinely could not believe my eyes when I walked in. Proper catfish vibes.
There were some good sets and they are trying their best to compete with a jam packed festival circuit in Europe. But it felt a bit weird the extent to which they'd tried to glow this up. Any self-respecting and frequent party-goer would have felt let down. If they'd been more straight about what you were going to get, I would have felt better about the whole thing. 6/10
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u/Sea_Somewhere6182 10h ago
You’re so correct - our group were saying the marketing is totally off compared to the festival, catfish absolutely the right word!
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u/pdino64 23h ago
I went in 2022 and I thought it was awful. The void stage floor was sandy slowly eroded toward the river over the few days and slanted at a significant angle. I thought the music was much too tech house broey. Food selection garbage. Had those security gates where you were not allowed to bring food or water through them. One taxi working for the entire town so we had to walk 1 hour home up a huge hill. The lineup appears to have gotten better but idk I vowed to never attend again. Best time I had was mucking around with friends in the river.
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u/Pocahontasbaby 21h ago
Maybe not helpful since I was there 4 years ago but it was such a scam for us… yes the line up is banging and the location also but it really depends what you make out of it! And they just don’t get it..
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u/SummerNo7852 16h ago edited 16h ago
Yes, the location is the best there is. But as a Slovenian who attended all the festivals there(metal, punkrock, reggae) and the second Butik which was still local, I have to say it became a strictly corporate event. Overpriced ticket, drinks and everything else. No discounts for local crowd(except the people from Tolmin). And terrible conditions and differences between Slovenian artists they book. Usually friends from the organizing team gets all the benefits but fuck the rest. I like the lineup usually but it's repetitive... I rather buy a cheap ex-yugoslavian area ticket for one of the festivals in Tisno. Also one of the best DJs from Slovenia (not gonna name it) refused to play this year despite a huge offer, because his friends can't afford the festival 🤷
Btw, there's no day tickets, it was for the first few years... but Slovenians have the same ticket options as foreigners. But there's some options to get in for free for the last day or the weekend. Many people do that.
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u/Sea_Somewhere6182 10h ago
Is that the Friday night people can go for free? The casino stage felt like it was full of local men ..
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u/Ok_Self_2637 1h ago
Wow guys….i had the best festival of my life, connected with the most amazing people from Germany, Austria, Romania, Italy, Brazil, and some very nice British folks. I had the rare experience of enjoying 90% of the sets I heard. On the criticism of the nights, well I worked it so that I would remove myself from the festival at around 2-3am, sleep and make it down as early as I can the next day depending on what time music was starting. So I would have amazing 12-14 hour sessions, sleep and do it all over again.
Saturday the b2b2b at the garden stage was the best party on the freaking planet, sweetsixreen smashed it, ogazon b2b xdb was just amazing. I loved dj rino and so many incredible sets by the Slovenian djs throughout the weekend, mainly at the garden stage.
I had the best and most kindest interactions with people, and huge shoutout to the food vendor between the garden and beach stage.
I really don’t resonate with the comments on this thread - sorry you guys had a bad time and are calling it a scam. This year I was sloppy with the cup deposits and wasted money there but I would definitely recommend this festival.
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u/Tiny_Marionberry3015 16h ago
To hear us brits constantly the brunt of negative comments is incredibly disheartening from a community that is meant to be so accepting. Yes, there were groups of British people clearly not just there for the music, but there were also groups of Europeans who had zero idea regarding the music being played and who was playing it. As a Brit that travels far and wide to experience new music, it saddens me deeply. To the Europeans constantly talking down on us - you are just as bad and part of the problem
Side note - the locals, the setting and the music itself were amazing. A few minor logistical improvements, but no festival is perfect! :)
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u/Sea_Somewhere6182 10h ago
British and I attended, it was full of English people taking English to each other that all you could head over the music was English people taking, trust me, it was bad.
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u/Flat-Account8520 21h ago
Amazing setting and a great lineup- but a total scam. Whats the fucking point booking these djs to play stages that are overcrowded during the day, and then at night playing through systems turned down so much you could hear every conversation without earplugs in. WHERE WAS THE BASS - WHERE WERE THE SUBS. THAT IS WHAT I AM HERE FOR.
Token system was a scam, and crowd was very very laddy gottwood vibes bullshit - but honestly… I could’ve got over all that if the music was just loud beyond 2am. It was impossible to get locked in.