Gurtenfestival is a wonderland of music entwined with nature

Named for the Gurten mountain whose peak it rests upon, Gurtenfestival towers over Bern, Switzerland’s fifth largest city. Despite its impressive 850 metre ascent, the locals affectionately refer to it as “the hill”, an understandable notion when the Alps provide the looming backdrop to its scenic terrain. With the city an easy hour’s train ride from Zurich airport, the Gurten welcomes 27,000 music fans to its summit each day, ferried by a quaint blue funicular railway that trundles up the mountain’s slope through thick forests, fields and ferns.

As I arrive on the festival’s vibrant first day, a large crowd gathers to watch Swiss singer Danitsa confidently lighting up the Waldbühne stage with her dazzling blend of hip-hop and reggae. Amid cheers from the throngs of glitter-clad partygoers, she leads an enthused call and response to her track “Captain” that feels warmly affable.

This particular stage is dedicated to Swiss performers, a key part of the festival’s mission to uplift and celebrate the talent of local artists alongside the more internationally recognisable names. With an impressively diverse lineup of acts on offer, it isn’t long before Grammy-winning rapper Sean Paul steps onto the main stage (Hauptbühne) to a raucous reception. Flanked by glittering dancers, he cycles through hits from “Cheap Thrills” to “Temperature”, delivering an electrifying injection of feel-good energy as the sun begins to set over the misted Alps.

While many music festivals look to build their own ‘removed-from-planet-earth’ wonderland, Gurtenfestival notably embraces the bucolic landscape that plays host each year. It’s an impressive feat of seeming impossibility that such an event can even be created here, with only steep, winding roads leading up to the festival – so narrow the city limits the number of vehicles able to use the route at any one time. As we stroll through the festival’s food court, the team explain that all infrastructure, stage production, and gear must be unloaded from lorries and tour buses and driven up in smaller vans.

With six music stages spaced out across the festival grounds, it’s notable that half are dedicated to DJs sets, which this year make up nearly a third of the programming. Comfortably nestled in a small cabin behind the main stage, Gurtenfestival’s Head of Booking, Biru Haller, tells me how the late-90s first saw the festival’s programming team introduce DJs to the lineup. “We try to be as open minded as possible with the booking,” he explains, reflecting on the event’s diverse lineup spanning indie and rock, to rap, dance and disco. “Start the day with the perfect mixtape, some surprises, then bring some classics and some big tunes,” he smiles.

Having previously run his own club for the better part of a decade, Haller nods to the Soundgarden and Cosmodrome stages in particular, noting that the festival aims to book one big international artist per night for each: “club culture is really important for me.”

Breaking down each tent’s carefully curated lineup, Haller points to the Cosmodrome stage as the home for electronic music, while Supermercado tailors to the pop-leaning crowd – or “Top 40 Hits” as he warmly describes it. In his opinion, the standout dance tent is the Soundgarden, a large futuristic structure geared towards the “forward-thinking DJs at the forefront of breaking through.”

Catering to a broad spectrum of music tastes, there’s a laidback attitude that feels intrinsic to Gurtenfestival’s charm. From the sheltered canopies of fairy lights where fans gather between sets, to the short walks between stages and abundance of viewing areas, it’s easy to enjoy the plethora of entertainment at a gentle pace. Outside of its music programming, the festival’s Forum stage offers a platform for talks, comedy and more, drawing crowds for Swiss comedian Gabirano as well as Yanil Altagracia’s brilliantly jovial ‘TWERK WORKSHOP’ – which is just what it says on the tin.

As night draws in, Lily Allen brings her theatrical West End Girl set to Switzerland for the first time. Striding across her pink carpeted stage, she slips between teary-eyed crooning and emboldened, sly smiles. Peppered with humor, Allen tucks a pair of high-heeled legs back inside a baby pink fridge, proudly sports a frilly apron emblazoned with ‘cuck’, and stares wide-eyed at various sex toys plucked from beneath her bed.

While record highlights like “Pussy Palace” go down a treat, there’s surprisingly little engagement from the crowd when she turns and asks “Who’s Madeline?”, hinting that a few of her surefire hits would not have gone amiss with a festival crowd. As the show heads to its conclusion and Allen rises out from the stage atop a giant, multi-layered birthday cake, captivation at her performance is only interrupted by thoughts of ‘how did they get that up a mountain?!’

Finishing off the evening’s double headline show, Lorde’s hit-laden set is a fantastically intense spectacle. As she launches into fan-favourites “Royals” and “What Was That”, all while balanced upon a brightly flashing airborne platform beside her two dancers, the weather takes a thunderous turn. Despite the downpour, the atmosphere remains electric, with an eager crowd singing back at her in unison as nature joins the mesmerising commotion.

Alongside the international stars decorating the lineup, the festival’s drive to champion Swiss talent is easily accomplished with the wealth on offer. Bern’s own pop-rock band Splendid deliver a standout festival set, deftly combining well-known melodic earworms – from The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” to The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” – into new, original songs; all in their native tongue. Pulling a headline-worthy crowd, there's a warm sense of community in the gathering that seems to mirror the festival's own love of Switzerland's impressive talent.

Bern-hailing rappers Lo & Leduc make for another highlight, performing in the Bernese German dialect over a lively brass band. Underneath a slew of floating white hearts suspended over the stage, their Swiss chart-topping hit “079” goes down a treat with the festival’s locals.

Another highly anticipated set (albeit controversial I’m dutifully informed), is the main stage appearance of German rapper Ikkimel. “She imitates what the macho men do,” a German-speaking festival-goer tells me, pausing to add that her lyrics are “very naughty.” Even without a word-for-word translation, there’s nothing subtle about Ikkimel’s portrayal of catty, feminine-power: she grinds on a spiked throne, brings up a fan to give birth on stage, and plucks a man from the crowd to lock in a dog cage. As she effortlessly raps through crowdpleasers “WHO’S THAT”, “IDGAF” and “COUNTRY GIRL”, it’s an impressive spectacle from start to finish, even dropping in a cover of Bieber’s “Baby” with a well-timed flourish.

With each day's festivities kicking off in the early afternoon, a highlight of Gurtenfestival is its ease of access from the city of Bern, which reflects the laidback attitude of the festival itself. A designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Old Town’s 15th-century medieval architecture, cobbled streets and sandstone buildings mix living quarters with shops and outdoor dining beneath stretches of covered arcades.

On a morning tour of the city, our guide retells the 12th-Century tale of how the city’s founder named his new settlement after the first creature he killed on a hunt: the bear. With the animal emblazoned in stripes of red and yellow on the city’s flag, Bern also boasts its own 6,000-square-metre Bear Park dedicated to housing its three brown bear residents.

Alongside the city’s idyllic charm, it’s hard to miss the turquoise waters of the Aare River that curls around the Old Town. After an inviting summer swim, we return to the festivities atop the Gurten where the sisters at the heart of Bern’s own Sirens of Lesbos take over the Soundgarden’s DJ decks with a natural flair. The pair ignite an intimate club atmosphere beneath flashing LEDs, before Friday headliner KRAFTKLUB erupt onto the main stage. With a colossal crane lifting a glowing red countdown high into the air – a crane that took over 3 hours of careful maneuvering up the mountain I’m told – the German chart-toppers stride out in head-to-toe white suits, delivering a storm of indie-infused garage rock to a devoted audience.

As the music recedes into the mountains and the little funicular makes its descent back down to the city below, it’s easy to see why Gurtenfestival has continued to endure. With its 50th anniversary just around the corner, Switzerland’s kaleidoscopic celebration of music proves itself a melting pot of genre, atmosphere, and community embracing the natural landscape that shaped it.