Last year we stood on "Refshaleøen" with wet shoes and just had to kill a few hours before Justice. The hours ended up being the festival itself. We lingered, disappeared into the mood, and suddenly things happened. A pop-up-ish scene in a shed down against the water became the place where we partied, drank, and enjoyed being at a festival twenty minutes from home without having to pawn an internal organ to get home in a taxi. O Days is onto something. Not in the big, pathetic way where someone stands and calls it a “cultural rallying point” in a press release. Just right. Whether that is what they themselves intended to create, I do not know. But it is increasingly similar to the festival I myself have dreamed of. The little festival with the big impression. For God knows there are plenty of great festivals that leave you with the feeling of having been to a very expensive staff event.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
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This year, the festival looks even more like the lineup your friend with the best techno bookings would send you at 1:12 a.m. with the text: “You need to check this out.” The type of friend one usually feels like blocking out because he always makes it sound like he discovered a Romanian breakbeat duo before Resident Advisor. But for once, he's almost right. O Days 2026 drifts heavily into the British and clubbed electronics, and we've boiled the programme down to what you actually have to see. Frankly: there's plenty of hate when it comes to O Days, retained. The sunglasses-wearing handsome young men with nice hair. The young women who are evidently immunized against the cold. The slightly arrogant collection of overpriced, natural wines and people who look like someone who is only there if they can simultaneously be cast for an Acne catalogue. But that is. You're at a festival in Copenhagen. What were you counting on? If you want to talk to people you don't know, go to Smukfest.
The first thing to understand about O Days 2026 is that the festival actually dares to have a profile. The lineup is not a buffet. It's a statement. Not in that annoying way where someone tries to convince you that everything is curated while half just looks like a compromise. More in the rare way where you can actually feel that someone has had an idea with the whole thing. Disclosure, Joy Orbison, Nia Archives, Mall Grab, The Dare, Swimming Paul, Tripolism, Σtella, Buraka As Sistema and Bremer/McCoy They all point towards something more clubby, more curated and more British in the bloodstream than you usually get served at a Danish summer festival.
It's not a lineup trying to cover every need. It's not “a little pop for the young, a little rock for the dads and a little electronic for those with totebags.” It's far more deliberate than that. O Days seems this year like a festival that has decided it would rather be sharp than broad. And it's honestly quite refreshing. For there is something very charming about a poster who is not constantly looking nervously over his shoulder to see if everyone now feels invited too.
It also means the festival leans into something that can feel a little bit more specialised. More like the lineup your friend with the best technobookings sends you in the middle of the night, when he's half a glass of natural wine too far inside for his own taste. But this time it's not all namedropping and niche fetishes. This time there is actual substance behind it. You can feel UK garage, house, rave, breakbeats and that slightly sweaty, metropolitan energy running through the programme like a red thread. Even when the festival takes a detour over into something softer or more dreamy, it still feels like part of the same thought.
It's not the lineup for everyone. That's kinda the point. And that may also be exactly why it looks so good.
The Editors' 9 Recommendations
Disclosure (DJ set)
Disclosure is kind of the kind of booking that, on paper, may well trigger a little inner eye rolling. Not because they are not good, but because for many of us they have become synonymous with that very particular 2013 feeling in which all people with a festival wristband identity suddenly had an attitude towards Latch, White Noise and whether one “could still hear some UKG in it”. If you, like the majority of people who have been to a party in the last thirteen years, don't exactly get the chills from getting another reminder of their old evergreens, then this is actually very understandable.
The interesting thing is just that a Disclosure DJ set in 2026 isn't really about nostalgia in the lazy way. It's less about being fed a neat hit parade and more about being reminded that they still have taste, range and a fairly well-developed understanding of how to build up a space. In recent years they have moved further away from pure festival-pop and closer back towards something more clubby, more functional and more vibrant. Today, when they do things with names like Chris Lake, and when their newer output has more speed and less polished crossover, it also points to the fact that they know that no one bothers to stand on Refshaleøen and get served a museum set. One may therefore be pleasantly surprised. Not because they've suddenly become obscure. But because in DJ format they again get to be something more than just him from there Latch.
Joy Orbison
Joy Orbison is such a name that makes people with good taste straighten up a little bit in the chair. Peter O'Grady hails from Croydon and, since “Hyph Mngo” in 2009, has been one of the most influential figures in the field between UK garage, house, dubstep and jungle. The kind of artist who doesn't just play tracks, but feels like a whole set of references in human form. If you'd like to see how much of the lineup in reality owes to British club history, then Joy Orbison is a very good place to start.
And the great thing about Joy Orbison, after all, is that he hasn't just become a museum item for people who still talk about 2009 as if it were the Congress of Vienna. He still feels active in the present. His newer tracks still have that ability to sound both crooked, clubby and strangely precise at the same time, and tracks like “Freedom 2,” featuring Kwengface and Overmono, show very well why he's still relevant. It's not just UK nostalgia. It's a sound that still moves and can still hit a modern audience without losing that slightly muddy, very British nerve. In other words, he's not just something you should respect. He's also something you actually still want to hear at 1:40 a.m., when things like to get a little darker.
Nia Arkiv
Nia Archives is perhaps the name on the poster that can best turn coziness into acceleration. Born in Bradford, she works with jungle and drum'n'bass and has become a central figure in the genre's newer wave, not least because she both produces, sings and DJs with an energy that feels far more alive than just “retro revival.” She's already had a breakthrough with her own EPs and the album Silence Is Loud, and when she hits an audience right, it rarely becomes a quiet affair. This isn't just something you nod to. It's something you get a sweat on your back from.
And then there's the obvious: she also has tracks that actually do something to people. Baiana is a very good example. A number that feels both like a shortcut to euphoria and like something that could start a minor folk move if put right in a set. The kind of track that sounds effortless, although in reality it's built with very precise control over how much heart and how much rave you can throw into the same pot.
And if you're still in any doubt as to how much live energy she actually brings, then the Boiler Room Nottingham set from International Women's Day is the obvious place to start. Boiler Room described her herself as the one who curated the entire lineup for the evening, and that makes sense when you see or hear the set: it's not just technically good, it's also an artist who looks like someone who has an absurd amount of fun in her own universe. As one commenter on the video said: “This is the most fun I've seen an artist have at their own set. Really fun to watch and listen to.” It's hard to disagree very much with.
Mall Grab
Mall Grab is the real name if you want to be able to say “it actually got pretty wild” without lying. Australian Jordon Alexander has built a strong reputation in the span between house and techno, and he has for several years been one of those DJs who can make a set feel both raw and quite precise at the same time. Not heavy in the stupid way. More like that: groove, speed and that feeling that things can tip a bit without falling apart. O Days places him perfectly in the program as a booking that can lift the energy without losing format.
Buraka Sistema
Buraka Som Sistema is perhaps the booking on the poster that best explains why Saturday looks so strong. This isn't just another electronic name. It's a group that in its day turned kuduro, global bass and club music into something that felt both raw, sweaty and culturally explosive all at once. When you say Buraka Som Sistema, you also say “Kalemba”, “Sound of Kuduro” and that whole energy where it feels like the body understands the music half a second before the brain does. And yes, the slightly messy note from our original talk of “Budakarsen Systema” and “Ba Ba Ba Hangover” must be allowed to live on because it actually points to something real: Buraka still exists as a name that can make a lineup seem less neat and more dangerous. It suits O Days absolutely enormously.
Swimming Paul
Swimming Paul is kind of the booking you can use to impress people with if you bother being annoying in that charming way. Paris producer, emotional club music, old rave tunes in a new light and a sound that constantly balances between euphoria and melancholy. The festival itself leans into that narrative about him as something that is both nostalgic and forward-looking, and that makes sense. He's the kind of artist who can make a field feel intimate without losing momentum. Not necessarily the biggest name of the weekend. Perhaps one of the smartest to show up to.
Tripolim
If you want to know which Danish electronic name actually feels on its way out into the world and not just around the same three Copenhagen circles, then the answer is Tripolism. The trio's members Bryn, Fred and Ras have been building up strong international momentum since 2021, with the breakthrough coming in earnest with “Dope Dance” before debut album Absolute Dope and the Ultra signing did the rest. Their sound is between house, disco and techno, but what matters is that they actually have melodies and vocals that you can remember. This makes them far more festival-friendly than many of the acts who otherwise live high on pure ambience and very little singing.
Stella
Σtella is the lineup's most elegant detour. Stella Chronopoulou is from Athens, graduated from the Athens School of Fine Arts and has gradually established herself as an international indie pop artist with both Greek roots and global reach. Her more recent material, Adagio in particular, is built on nylon strings, slightly psychedelic colours and a very deliberate slowness, which in a festival context can be absolutely perfect if you don't just bother having things hammering. She's not the name that necessarily gets the most people shouting. In turn, she is exactly the kind of booking that makes a lineup better.
The Dare (DJ set)
The Dare is the dirty smile of the lineup. Harrison Patrick Smith hails from the United States and has in a short time made a name for himself as a central figure in the recent electroclash and indie sleaze revival, both with his own tracks such as “Girls” and through his work on Charli XCX's “Guess”. On O Days, he plays DJ sets, which suits his overall energy very well: less art school lecturing, more “now let's knock it over a bit.” If you'd like one name on the poster that feels like a very well-dressed bad idea, this is your take.
Bremer/McCoy
Bremer/McCoy is not the booking that makes the lineup more rave. In turn, they make it more adult. Composed of Jonathan Bremer on bass and Morten McCoy on piano, the duo have built a very special space around their slow, open and very warm instrumental universe. On their own bio, they themselves describe the music as something that should create wordless communication, tranquility and beauty in a slightly hard time. It almost sounds too neat on paper, but live it makes sense. And yes, the slightly messy side note must be allowed to live, because it is actually true: Morten McCoy is Jens Ole McCoy's older brother. That's not why you have to watch Bremer/McCoy. But it's exactly such a detail that makes a festival guide more human than mechanical. If at some point during the festival you need to remember that music must also be beautiful without being effective, then this is a very good place to go.
If you can only take one day, we still point to Saturday.
Not as natural science truth, but as the day on which the festival's identity stands sharpest. Disclosure, Joy Orbison, Buraka Som Sistema, Σtella and Swimming Paul together give a sense that O Days that day will be both big, beautiful and clubby at the same time. Thursday is strong. Friday has its stuff, too. But Saturday looks like the day when you least risk going home feeling like you chose wrong.
Conclusion without conclusion:
O Days 2026 doesn't just look like a good weekend. It looks like a lineup with an attitude. Something that dares to be a little narrower, a little cooler and a little more British in the bloodstream, without becoming an inside joke for people with overly expensive headphones. In fact, this is perhaps the most promising thing about it all.
