All-night raves and mid-sesh bungee jumps: Inside the Brit abroad chaos at Hideout Festival

Summer is the season of living for the plot. You stay out till 5AM just for the story, book flights without thinking accommodation or transfers through and snog endless questionable people just to have something to talk about at hungover brunch the next day. It’s a loop of come downs, hook ups, sunburn and general feral behaviour.

And, if you’re looking for such chaos (screw the clean girl aesthetic), you should really head to Hideout Festival in Croatia because this event is wild: Never-ending music from class DJs, thousands of Brits abroad, mid-session bungee jumping and more nos canisters than you’ve ever seen in your life. This is basically the wildest summer party you can possibly get tickets to. I lost brain cells on this seven day bender. So, let’s dive into the madness:

The best live DJ sets outside of Ibiza

Obviously, the first thing to mention about Hideout is the music. Patrick Topping, Alan Fitzpatrick, Folamour, Eliza Rose, Barry Can’t Swim, Ben Hemsley, Girls Don’t Sync and Honey Dijon were all on the line up this year, playing across multiple stages along Pag island’s strip: Zrce Beach.

Essentially, imagine you’re in Vegas and every single pool party across the city has allowed you access to see the world’s best talent with one wristband: That’s what it’s like in Pag. You jump from club to club, rave to rave, pool to beach bar, getting a tan, dancing on tables, and wangling a view of the artists above thousands of topless men.

Music until 5AM if you’re strong enough

You know the drill, Sunday scaries can’t catch up with you if you just keep partying. And Hideout Festival, with its never-ending music, is the perfect place for such avoidance of reality. You nap and sunbathe all morning long at your hotel, eat some chips, down some vodka, party until the sun rises, and lather, rinse, repeat for seven days straight. Pack paracetamol, after sun, and prepare to lose all concept of what day of the week it is.

Wild boat parties every single day

You know that feeling where you’ve been at a rave, you’re sat back in someone’s dingy afters apartment and you wonder what you’re doing with your life? Now, imagine you’ve swapped that London flat for a boat with aqua Adriatic sea views and scorched sunset skies. Oh, and you’re ten vodka lemonades deep and Wilkinson is DJing. Now you’re halfway towards understanding the semi-wholesome session that is a Hideout boat party.

Was it hard to get off the beach and back into rave mode by 6pm? Yes. Was it worth it? Also, yes.

Breathing more Nos than oxygen

Despite the Tories’ plans to ban it in Britain altogether, there’s nothing UK citizens seem to love more on holibobs than a nos balloon. And this has never been more evident than after a week at Hideout: Every minute you don’t hear thumping beats, you hear the air release of laughing gas. On the beach, at the event stages, 9AM, 11PM, 5AM— wherever, whenever, bum bags, elf bars and balloons are to hand. This really is our culture.

Bungee jumps mid session

Remember when your mum used to ask you “if your friends jumped off a cliff would you do it too?” Well, now you get to answer her “yes” because, terrifyingly, mid-session at Hideout you can go and hurl yourself off the top of a crane and down to the sea below on their towering bungee jump contraption. An excellent idea after 48 hours straight of getting on it.

A huge plane fight to see off the week

When you climb aboard a London RyanAir flight en route to a party destination, you expect the standard back-of-the-school-bus behaviour: swigging clandestine vodka from duty free bags under the flight attendants’ noses, blasting tunes out of portable speakers, cheering when you land. And the journey out was just that rowdy.

On the journey home, however, you might think there’d be more calm. The girlies are wearing cleansing face masks, the boys have their hoods up to nap. Energy levels are at an all time, plummeting, low. Which, they were on our Friday night return, until the most bizarre moment of the week took place: A spontaneous plane fight.

One man, now identified as a 27-year-old British boxer, sprung out of his seat as the plane prepared to take off, screamed at staff, attempted to push past them to open the door of the plane, before two other (mega muscly) passengers tackled him to the ground. Police dragged him away, everyone cheered, and two hours of runway standby time later, we were back at Stanstead. And so ended the most manic week of my life.

Verdict: So, should you head to Hideout Festival? If you’re looking for a few days snoozing by an all-inclusive pool with a book, absolutely fucking not. But if you want to drink, dance, watch every single one of your favourite DJs and come home with enough anecdotes to fill any conversational silence, book your tickets now. Now.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Inside Parklife 2023, a festival experience that felt like trying to survive an apocalypse 

• A fool proof guide to all the best festivals happening in the UK and abroad this summer

• A complete rundown of all the carnage that took place inside Reading and Leeds festival