Thousands of people gathered in Zambujeira do Mar in Odemira recently, to take part in the eighth Sudoeste musical festival, sponsored by Optimus telecommunications.
Although this year’s line-up included acts such as Massive Attack, Franz Ferdinand, Groove Armada and Da Weasel, veteran partygoers claimed that the event had not attracted the high numbers of previous years. “It’s clearly noticeable that there aren’t as many people here this year. For one, you couldn’t park anywhere near the festival on a Friday – this year we got here at 11pm on Friday and parked a couple of metres away from the festival. Last year, we had to camp on a hill because we got here on the weekend – this year we got a reasonably good spot,” said Jorge Mendes, 20, from Lagos, who travelled to Odemira especially to see Groove Armada.
Despite partygoers claiming the event was a flop compared to last year, organisers thought otherwise. On the first day of the festival, 12,500 people camped and 20,000 people bought a day pass. “The statistics surprised us. We didn’t expect so many people on the first day,” an Optimus spokesperson commented.
One thing everyone agreed on was the great variety of tents at the Optimus Sudoeste venue – the site contained an electronic tent, main tent and even a ‘relax zone’ tent, featuring massages and chilled out music.
