Croatia before it was a circuit

Hideout arrived on Zrće Beach in 2011, early enough to be one of the first festivals to make the move to Croatian soil. It has stayed on the same strip of sand on the island of Pag ever since, and the formula has held: four days and nights of parties, with the bill tilted toward house, techno, disco and bass. Festival director Mark Newton frames the booking around a mix of headline names and newer artists, an approach the team says it has held to since the first edition.

Five stages on one beach

The festival runs across five open-air venues lined up along Zrće, with the Velebit mountain on one side and the Adriatic on the other. The rhythm follows the sun. Pool and day parties open in the afternoon, the beach party starts even earlier, and the night programme keeps going until 5am. The venues have their own capacity limits, so the advice from the organisers is simple: if a set matters, turn up when the doors open.

On the water and off it

Boat parties are part of the Hideout identity, taking DJs out onto the Adriatic for sunshine and sunset sessions. Back on land, the beach doubles as an adventure park, with a bungee jump a few metres from the sea, jet skis, parasailing and quad routes across Pag's famous lunar landscape. Most people base themselves in Novalja, the nearest town, and ride the shuttle buses to Zrće at any hour of the night. Zadar, Split, Zagreb and Pula are the closest airports.