While looking back at this years festivals, we are quite sure, that Hard Island Festival definitely belongs to one of the highlights so far. While drinking the best cocktails, enjoying the sun and view on the most beautiful girls in bikinis at the beach, you danced your ass off to just the best hard dance music – no matter if hardstyle, freestyle, hardcore or happy hardcore! Hard Island took place from 5th till 8th of July in Croatia, Zrce Beach, near Novalja. Know for the ultimate party location, Zcre Beach would be the perfect location to bring hard dance music to Croatia! Gather your friends and exprience the ultimate summer holiday. So far these were the promises! We visited Hard Island Festival 2016 and will tell you if the way and money was worth it. 

To kick things off, we’d like to start with the legendary boat parties. As one of the highlights Hard Island Festival 2016 offered a wide range of different boat parties – from a raw boat, to a Keeping The Rave Alive boat, to Hardcore Italia or a Dirty Workz cruise. No matter which style you like, there was at least one boat party you could have gone! We really liked the fact, that even more boat parties were offered, as the first were sold out. Captain, are we ready to enter the sea?
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Raw The Boat

The first boat party took place on Wednesday, 6th of July. As the name suggests this party will all about the rougher sounds in hardstyle music.

Jack of Sound
Sub Zero Project
Outbreak
MC V

It was 1pm as we locked the door of our apartement and went towards the local harbor of Novalja. The good thing, no matter in which apartment you were staying, the walk wasn’t long. As we arrived a few party people were already waiting. The sun was shining, we grabbed the first self mixed dricks and some beer and waited until the boat would finally arrive. Our mood was very good and we were excited for the very first boat party of Hard Island. The names on the line up promised a really cool cruise.

Sadly, the boat was late, really late. We waited nearly one hour until it finally shows up. But, the boat looked really nice, it kind of reminded me of a smaller pirate boat, it was a brown, wooden boat, with one deck and an upper podium with the dj booth. While waiting to get in the line got bigger and bigger, more and more people suddenly show up. I couldn’t really believe they would all fit on the boat, but they proved me wrong. It was enough space to dance. Thankfully the dancefloor was covered with some sort of dense web – although we used some good suncream, it was highly enjoyable on the boat. If you went downstairs you could have grabbed some drinks, starting from water, to softdrinks, beer and hard alcohol. The prices were actually pretty cheap – 22 KUN, which is a little more than 3€, for one 0,5L beer.

As we left the harbor they set up the sound system. All the people were confused, because afetr half an hour still no music was playing. So, people began to sat down and wait even longer. We seriously thought the music would start playing right after all people were on the boat. So, finally after another 40 minutes the music starts playing. The organizer explained, that they are not allowed to play loud music within range of the harbor.

Sub Zero Project took over the decks at first. Their unique sound system was shattering through the speakers, which were palced on both sides of the boat. Although we were all a little confused the poeple were still ready to party, and right as the first beats dropped, the atmosphere raised. Their set was packed with just the best of their very own tracks like Raise Your Fist with Sub Sonik, Hit The Funk, Funky Shit or Let The Pistols Go. They also dropped Natural Born Raver and Radical Redemption’s Hardbass tribute. All in all the set was really fun and had a nice tempo and drive.[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/hardstylemagazin/videos/vb.188618308003048/500933383438204/?type=2&theater” width=”800″ height=”500″ onlyvideo=”1″]

As we arrived at the cost of an island far away from the harbor, Dj Outbreak started playing. It was also now possible to jump into the water and cool yourself down. As expected the boat was almost half empty. But it was fun see people doing some crazy triple-flic-flac-turn-around-water-bomb into the ocean, while the heavy beats of Outbreak were punding through the speakers. Just if you’re curious, yes we also gathered all our strenght and took the jump – felt too good!

But lets go back to Outbreaks set. He started harder than expected. His collab with Radical Redemption has still one of the most crunchy basedrums I’ve ever heard. He also dropped Sub Nosiks remix of #Bassface, Sub Soniks Sandstorm and a brand new Sub Sonik track, which had a really nice drive! While more and more poeple were jumping into the water he also played Raw From The Heart and as last track Genocide by Delete – huge track here!
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Last but not least Jack of Sound was about to play. Pretty unusual, as this set was driven by more melodic tracks like Wolfpack or Alpha²’s remix of Tonight! After everyone climbed back on the boat, it was time to leave and ride towards harbor. The atmosphere was really awesome and the party, the feeling really different! Of course Jack of Sound dropped his collab with Alpha² Das Weite Land and the whole crowd was screaming. He also played his Fatality anthem Finish Him and tracks from his latest Hellraiser E.P.!

Keeping The Rave Alive Boat

The second boat was the Keeping The Rave Alive boat. It took place on 7th of July. Due to the Raw Boat we miseed the Keeping The Rave Alive party in the club, so we were even more hyped for this party. We thought there can’t be something better than raving to 360 degree of the harder styles with the one DJ Kutski and friends.

We are not really sure what to write about this boat party. On one hand it was one of the most fun partys we’ve ever had, just because of the really good music. But on the other side, the vibe wasn’t that good as on the previous boats. As well as it was a bit .. chaotic. Code Black didn’t play, no MC, no introduction of the DJs. The party somehow lost some magic due to these, at first sign, smaller things.
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DJ Kutski and Dr. Rude! Both palyed such a lovely set, dominated by a well done mix of all styles of dance music. Ranging from hardcore, to freestyle, to euphoric and raw they really showed the people what hard dance music is all about!

We don’t really know what happened to Code Black, as he origanally should have played after Kutski B2B Dr. Rude, but sadly he did not play a set. Right after Kutski and Dr. Rude The Melodyst took over the decks and brought us some good Italien hardcore! Awesome shit. First time that I heard a set by him, but it definitely surprised. A good mix of known Italian hardcore tracks. He made us dance until we reached the harbor of Novalja again. We seriously had the fun of our lifes!

All in all we would totally recommend to book a boat party in case you didn’t last year or didn’t even visit Hard Island! Hard Island is not all about the party in Club Kalypso at Zrce Beach – you can really have fun times at the boat parties! They aren’t even that expensive. For only 20€ you should definitely check at least one of them next year. Wait for the line up and we promise, no matter which style you prefer, there will be at least one boat party fitting your prefered music taste! So, grab your friends and have some serious fun times on board of one of the boat parties at Hard Island Festival! 

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