All About BPM Festival

Tamarindo, Costa Rica

Open Air / Indoor & Outdoor / Town

XXL – 50k+

Electronic

$$

International, Casual

3+ Days

BPM Festival is an A-lister music temple and one of the major players in the electronic music industry.

BPM is celebrated for its ecotourism, larger-than-life installations, and a crowd made of international globetrotters – a combo that ultimately makes it an ‘it’ music festival.

Here’s everything you need to know about BPM Festival.

BPM is a hub for electronic music lovers

Originally a post-New Year’s industry networking event, BPM has morphed into a music-fuelled hub for global DJs, music producers, electronic lovers, and industry professionals.

Every year, the music temple gathers over 400 artists and 80 events, such as music label showcases and brand parties. After its second edition, the music temple rebranded from The BPM Conference to BPM Festival.

With only 5,000 attendees for the seven-day event, labeling BPM’s first edition as modest would be an understatement.

But as years passed, BPM drew in ever-growing crowds – which ultimately called for extensions. BPM Festival jumped from a seven-day event to a ten-day festival in 2009.

With over a decade of festival planning under its belt, BPM now brings in over 70,000 techno aficionados, techno greenhorns, and house music adventurers from over 72 countries.

The electronic giant boasts enviable lineups

An unwritten rule goes like this – you can’t label yourself an electronic lover if you’ve never booked a one-way ticket to BPM Festival.

A jaw-dropping roster of over 400 artists performs at the BPM Festival yearly. Committed to satisfying the music thirst of every reveler, BPM puts everything from progressive house to techno into the spotlight.

Acts you would think of and those that would have never crossed your mind have already been on BPM’s schedules. Elite international names such as The Martinez Brothers and old-school legends like Marco Carola became staple names on BPM Festival’s lineups.

BPM changes locations around the world

What makes BPM a cut above the rest is its stunning beachfront location. Always taking over in small, lesser-known beach towns, the music festival delivers a bona fide tropical vibe.

While the first editions from its 2008 inception were held in Playa del Carmen, a Mexican resort city, BPM festival moved its home to Portimão, a port city on Portugal’s southern coast, in 2017.

Although the ten-day fest used the same Portugal site until 2017, it found a home on a small beach town in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Brimming with feet-sweeping landscapes and tropical vibes, the beautiful location garnered the status of a lusted-after city for surf aficionados.

Buzzing nightlife isn’t out of the picture either, as the city’s appeal is visible only after the sun goes down. At the end of the day, BPM transforms any location into a music mecca that lives and breathes electronic beats.

BPM features unique stage designs

In the Canopy and Jungle festival zones (parties hosted inside an actual jungle), four specially constructed stages await electronic sets, top-notch sound systems, and a crowd of festival-goers eager for heart-racing beats.

There is the Treehouse at Canopy stage and three Jungle stages – The Pod, Dreamcatcher, and Howling Monkey. In other words, a crew of stages makes BPM festival a pro at delivering audiovisual diversity.

BPM’s stages are furnished with locally obtained materials and embellished with vibrant designs painstakingly created by Konyo Factory, a bespoke design, installation, and production company.

The biggest acts perform on The Pod stage, which features projections of images and words atop a cone-shaped roof – so buckle up and be ready for the oomph effect.

Dreamcatcher is the biggest stage, with large dream catchers hanging from the trees – if you were wondering how it got its name. Howling Monkey is the smallest stage, while Treehouse at Canopy is the perfect place to pre-game or after-party as it closes when the other stages rev up for the night.

Besides the beautiful stage designs, BPM takes over other venues in this beach town. In BPM’s 2016 edition, Martina Beach Club, El Fogon, and the three now-shuttered venues Wah Wah Beach Club, Blue Parrot, and La Santanera, all participated in the partying.

BPM is not a camping fan

BPM is changing the rules when it comes to the accommodation game. Instead of traditional tent pitching, the music temple is at the forefront of what founder Pulitano refers to as “techno tourism.”

Festival-goers boost the local economy by securing accommodations, eating at local restaurants, and exploring unique tourist attractions.

Attendees can book beachfront mansions a little further from the hustle and bustle of the town or charming apartments in the heart of downtown Tamarindo.

But since the electronic fest takes over the whole beach town, it doesn’t matter which hostel, hotel, or Airbnb you pick – wherever you are, BPM events are always a stone’s throw away.

BPM fest spreads across multiple venues

As you can already tell, BPM is not your average music festival. With its off-the-wall blueprint, the fest brings the electronic genre across the entire town.

BPM’s ethos is now safeguarded by a range of distinct venues featuring everything from underground clubbing sessions to open-air jungle raves.

Diverse party destinations such as El Garito, Chiquita’s, and Ocho Beach Club have been BPM’s home in Costa Rica.

Unlike the ticket-only areas, these venues are affiliated with BPM and are free for anyone to attend. If you’re in Tamarindo during BPM season, there is no way of escaping it.

One pop-up BPM festival party obstructed the city’s main street

Many official, unexpected parties – some called “pop-ups” – occurring outside the regular timetable also attract party-goers.

BPM hosted a Technos Tacos pop-up party in 2014 and 2016. When Richie Hawtin and Dubfire performed a B2B at a taco stand on one of the main streets, it obstructed the city’s artery.

About 7,000 people gathered in the center of the street while the chef distributed finger-licking tacos.

These pop-ups in 2017 included Guy Gerber’s famously clandestine Rumors event, where DJs like Cassy, Behrouz, and Acid Mondays played alongside Gerber himself.

BPM is such a sought-after festival that the events get overcrowded

BPM hosted a massive party in the now-shuttered Blue Parrot nightclub, where Carl Cox took over the DJ booth. It might have been BPM’s music-fuelled appeal or that an electronic legend spun the audio decks – we will never know.

What we know is that people elbowed each other to get to the front row – so much so that the venue overflowed with EDM fans.

Although Blue Parrot’s capacity was 5,500, the party registered a jaw-dropping 8,500 attendees. No, festival-goers didn’t sit on top of each other, and nobody needed medical attention.

Instead, they used the ocean as their main dance floor – because nothing goes better with electronic beats than dipping half of your body in refreshing waters.

But that’s not the only story that the electronic titan will tell its grandchildren one day. In BPM’s 2015 edition, the Paradise party took over the Blue Venado beach club – the party didn’t last long, though, because the army shut it down.

To get to this beach club, festival-goers had to travel through the jungle on a 10-minute car journey down a dirt road. To say there was horrible car traffic would be a gross understatement. No less than 500 cars lined up for the party, causing a seemingly endless queue along the road.

The army arrived at 11 AM, shut the party down, and then completely sealed off the area – oh, the things we do for the love of electronic music. Five of BPM’s sound and lighting specialists were stuck at the venue for two days.

Be BPM-ready with the festival’s merch

Want to make a fashion statement? Get hold of some serious BPM merchandise, which looks swell with the iconic BPM logo printed on every item.

Partying in the jungle and on the beach can get your clothes dirty very quickly, so this is the perfect way to look good and be practical at the same time.

From T-shirts and sunglasses to bikini bags and hats, you are spoilt for choice – so make sure you collect them right away from their on-site merch store before they get sold out.

For their 2014 edition held in Playa del Carmen, BPM created limited edition tequila bottles with the BPM logo. Since Mexico’s national drink is tequila, what better way to commemorate your fun-filled festival weekend than a shot of gold?

BPM Festival prides itself as an environmentally conscious event

Since BPM is a large-scale festival, there is a huge environmental responsibility on it – and the music event doesn’t disappoint on that note.

BPM’s Green Team initiative aims to offset the negative environmental impact of trash and cigarette butts left in the aftermath of the festival. The team cleans the streets and beaches, recycles the waste, and even developed an “Amigo Code” to bring festival-goers into participation.

The Amigo Code encourages BPMers to do things like put recyclables at their assigned Green Team stations, be patient and respectful with the staff, and refrain from drinking in public places.

BPM even incorporates organic and recyclable materials into its infrastructure by giving them another life as festival decor elements. Chic and environmentally friendly, what more is there to love?

In BPM’s Ibiza edition, the festival hosted a wildlife conservation fundraiser where all profits went to charity.

BPM Festival has gone global

BPM Festival isn’t just a hit with Costa Rica’s partiers – it’s huge with fans all over the globe.

And when we say all over the globe, we mean all over.

The BPM brand has spin-off events in Bali, Barcelona, Miami, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Brazil, Dubai, Ibiza, Mykonos, New York City, Toronto, and the Zurich Streetparade, where it had its own BPM float in 2017 and 2018.