Boom Festival 2023: A Week of Music, Connection and Life Outside the Everyday
Returning to Boom Festival
become part of your life.
For me, Boom Festival is one of those places.
By the time I arrived at Boom Festival 2023, it was already my fifth Boom. You might think that after returning so many times, some of the magic would disappear. Instead, I find that every edition feels different. The music changes, the people change, and I change too.
Yet there's always that familiar feeling when I arrive: for a few days, everyday life suddenly feels very far away.
The 2023 edition took place from 20 to 27 July in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal. For one week, the landscape became a temporary home filled with music, art, movement and people who had travelled there from all over the world.
But what keeps bringing me back isn't only the festival itself. It's the way I experience life while I'm there.
Stepping Away From Everyday Life
One of my favourite things about Boom Festival 2023 was how easy it became to forget about the routines waiting outside.
Days weren't organised around emails, appointments or screens. Instead, they were shaped by music, conversations, the heat, finding some shade, swimming, wandering around the festival grounds and dancing until the sun came up.
I think that's one of the reasons Boom affects me so much.
It gives me the opportunity to live a little more analog again.
When you're not constantly thinking about what comes next, you begin noticing more of what's happening now. Small details become more visible. Conversations become longer. Ideas appear without having to force them.
And somewhere between dancing, wandering and doing absolutely nothing, there is suddenly room to think again.
I usually leave with far more ideas than I arrived with.
Trying to Experience Boom Without a Camera
As a photographer, there's always a strange tension between wanting to document an experience and simply wanting to be part of it.
I've actually tried going to Boom without my camera.
The idea was to experience everything without constantly thinking about photographs, compositions or light.
It worked—sort of.
Because even without a camera, I still found myself looking. The architecture, installations, people, colours, dusty landscapes and incredible details throughout the festival are almost impossible for me to ignore. Eventually, even a phone becomes tempting when you're surrounded by something that visually interesting.
So during Boom Festival 2023, I photographed again.
Not because I wanted to document every moment. In fact, I think trying to photograph everything would completely miss the point.
Instead, I wanted to capture fragments of the experience: the things that made me stop, look twice or think, I want to remember this.
More Than the Music
Electronic music is obviously a huge part of the Boom Festival in Portugal, and some of my strongest memories are of dancing for hours to incredible sets.
But reducing Boom to a music festival doesn't quite explain it.
Art, architecture, workshops, performances, talks and visual installations are woven throughout the festival. You can move from a dance floor filled with thousands of people to a quiet corner where someone is creating something, teaching something or simply resting beneath a structure you've never seen anything like before.
That mixture of experiences is part of what makes photographing Boom so interesting.
Everywhere you look, something is happening.
But some of my favourite moments are actually the quieter ones in between.
The People Who Make Boom What It Is
And then there are the people.
One of the things I've always loved about Boom Festival is meeting people from completely different places and backgrounds who somehow end up sharing the same temporary world.
Some encounters last an afternoon. Others become friendships. Some are simply a conversation with someone you'll probably never see again.
Together, they create the atmosphere I associate with Boom: open, creative and wonderfully removed from ordinary routines.
When I look back at my Boom Festival photography, that's what I want the images to remind me of. Not simply what the festival looked like, but how it felt to be there.
Coming Home From Boom Festival 2023
It's difficult to explain Boom properly to someone who hasn't experienced it.
You can describe the stages, the landscape, the installations and the music. You can show photographs and videos. But there's still something missing.
Maybe that's true of every meaningful experience.
A photograph can't recreate a week. But it can hold onto one tiny piece of it.
That's why I continue taking photographs even when part of me wants to put the camera away entirely. Photography gives me a way to return to those moments later: the light, the colours, the people, the strange structures and all the small scenes that would otherwise slowly disappear from memory.
After Boom Festival 2023, I came home exhausted, grateful and creatively recharged.
And, of course, already thinking about the next one.
Thank you to everyone who made those days what they were.
See you at Boom.
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Hi there, I’m Stefanie — the photographer behind Pietschy Photography and the heart behind this blog. Every word I write and every image I share is an invitation to pause for a moment, and discover the art of storytelling through fine art photography.
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