Above photo credit: Ryan Dinham
Junction 2 is a festival that has grown from strength to strength since it’s inception three years ago.
The first few hours of the day were spent exploring the sizeable festival site, with the quality of design and sound varying greatly across stages. Unfortunately, The Hexagon and The Oasis stages lacked the immersive feel that is critical for a dance music venue, despite the strong list of big name DJs that they played host to.
However, this was definitely not mirrored across the rest of the festival. The food, site logistics, and other stages set a new benchmark for what a London day festival should aspire to.
The Bridge, The Warehouse and The Woods, all offered a slightly different festival experience with no compromise on sound quality.
The Bridge, set under Junction 2 of the M4, played host to Drumcode and some of tech-house’s biggest names, whereas The Warehouse housed techno heavyweights including Luke Slater, Function and Len Faki.
Our pick of the stages was The Woods where we spent the majority of our afternoon. Set within the woods of Boston Manor Park, it provided the perfect contrast to the larger stages.
Sonja Moonear and Nicolas Lutz played the best set of the festival which showcased a combination of early tech-house, electro and garage from their impressively deep record collections. The 5 hour set time gave both DJs the freedom to regularly change between genres without feeling disjointed. Unfortunately, overcrowding detracted from Joy Orbison’s set, where we spent the majority of listening from well within the wooded area and outside of the best sound range.
Overall Junction 2 provided a great experience, with only a few areas of improvement for future editions.
It was evident across the site that the promoters cared about the experience of their attendees. The essentials such as the toilets, food and drink were done right – so often neglected, despite the often extortionate price of a festival ticket.
The sound, supported by L’Acoustics throughout the site was amongst the best that a festivalgoer is likely to encounter this summer.
The main opportunity for this festival would be the number of female bookings. With many festivals recently signing up to the Keychange pledge, others must continue to do more to improve female representation and showcase talent on their large platforms.
Written by: James Acquaye Nortey-Glover